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The Courage To Show Up Imperfectly
My best thoughts come to me amidst a sweaty breathe based ashtanga mysore class. Today I found myself in uttita trikonasa emboldened in my own enlightenment at my lack of perfect alignment. “The courage to show up imperfectly is where confidence and wisdom stem from.” For the initial months of my settling into Bozeman, Mt looked like quite the opposite. I was recovering from meniscus surgery and terrified to be anything less than perfect. My practice had been coveted for years. I got so used to the compliments that would follow after class that when they dissappeared I noticed my attachment to their external validation. I started weaving stories about how I was less than and not enough, the grief of injury and aging set in and I concluded that I was better off isolating in hermit mode at home until I was exactly back to where I had been pre injury.
Oh the irony. As i struggled to find sangha and community I was more committed to my own suffering than I was to my healing. Healing would come only months after I realized practicing at home in isolation was soul sucking and underwhelming. I grieved my community on the east coast and struggled to find myself on my mat and in my own life. I felt as though parts of my identity were slowly eroding away and I grasped for air in a winter that felt like i was drowning on ice.
They say that people only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. At some point — lets call it March. I reached that threshold. Ray and I came back from a retreat with a mentor of mine that left me feeling refreshed, renewed, invigorated and like I could bloom right where I was planted. I found a studio where I could teach and I committed myself back to my ashtanga roots.
Today as I practiced admist my new sangha rather than shaming my tight hips and hamstrings for their natural cause and affect of the by products of traveling I softened into reality. I found mudita sympathetic joy in reality. I am getting older. My practice is changing. And the gift that comes with age is that we are wise enough to know that the confidence that comes with the courage to show up imperfectly is far greater than the insecurity and shame spirals that isolation breeds.
When I injured my knee last year I felt like the universe was handing me an ego death. I…
