Yoga Lessons: Accept your limitations on and off the mat

When I talked to people about doing yoga, I often get the response "I am not good at yoga" or "I am not flexible enough". Yoga is not about being good or flexible. It is about just being - I will say that again, just being, fullstop.

Your body and its flexibility, is just how you were born, and a factor of how you've lived but as with everything it changes. And this change depends on how you will continue living. Through yoga you can start to recognise these body limitations (can't touch your toes in forward bend, or maybe back bending makes you want to puke), accept yourself as you are on the mat and take this to your daily grind. You might not be good at public speaking, finding relationships, showing emotions - just like how in yoga you can work on your body's limitations (through practice), as you get closer to touching your toes you will see these other things not as barriers but just things that are apart of you. And can be overcame if you want to, otherwise you are good just as you are right now.

To have more control in your life and more happiness; accept yourself, remove the blame and defy those limitations.

Accepting is hard:

"Accepting me just the way I am" is a hard thing in life to do. There is constant reminders and triggers of seeing things we should be, have or do. For some reason we forget that the celebrity on the front page of the magazine is completely airbrushed and that ideal body doesn't exist for 99% of us. It always seems if we were a little different things would be better. If I only had more muscle, a bigger house, smaller thighs, taller, nice car, more hair, less this or more that. And the even more ironic thing is that as soon as you get this thing you will want/need something else - it is life. Its the way our species is hardwired. And it does have benefits, like giving us the ability to thrive in any environment, be at the top of the food chain and not just stagnate.

With yoga we can learn to watch the thoughts, control the attachment to these thoughts and be happier just the way things are. Even though we will still want that nice house, amazing hair, cool clothes, flat tummy, etc. We can be happy just with what we got now; I am not a better person if I drive that red porsche but I am a better person if I am happier to be around because I like myself today. Yoga can help you find this sense of completeness and acceptance. Its a little reminder to stop for an hour and give yourself the space to find the "I" behind the chatter box telling us all these things. It helps you find and answer, "what is really important in life?"

Remember its not your fault its genetics:

People comment on my forward bend and say "wow your great at yoga." Not necessarily, I am just forward bendy. My 65 year old mother, who does not do yoga, can without effort touch hers as well. Its genetics people and as I mentioned initially everything changes and can change if you want it to. The key in that equation is "you" and "want"; anything good takes effort. And if this same person were to see me back bend or twist they'd say I was not good at yoga. My tight shoulders are my limitation. It doesn't make sense to generalise good and bad - if I can't shot a goal in soccer I might still be a great defender, I still play. So please don't let being good or bad stop you from yoga.

Understanding on the mat translates to off the mat:

So we now recognise that "hey I have limitations that I didn't ask for, it is just the cards I've been dealt." In life we have parents, family, circumstances, a body, we are just born into. If you sulk around about how crappy the hand you've been dealt you won't get anywhere. And progress and happiness is hard to find when your at the self-pity party.

Defying your limitations is possible, with a little effort anyone can do anything, there is nothing stopping you. The "how" is for the universe to delivery to you (future posts to discuss this more).

Instead of saying man I can't touch my toes, well yes you can with a little effort and yoga practice, why not.Like every heartwarming rags-to-riches story would exemplify - Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, J.K Rowlings, Jim Carrey...if they would've let their cards determine life they would've folded and we'd never learned so much from a talk-show, had the best airline experiences, escape in a world of wizards, and laugh at dumb things. So put on that pa pa poker face and get on that mat with whatever cards you got.