Shifting Slowly

I sat on the couch completely unmotivated. It’s been a long weekend, how? I’m not sure. I think the weather is partially to blame.  Saturday was gorgeous out and I spent the day on the deck doing yoga and meditated.  Sunday was a total wash but I made the best of it for Mother’s Day and went to the craft store with my daughter as my husband lay in bed vomiting all day.  My daughter and I quarantined ourselves in her room for the night, on a twin size bed that lays on the ground; we were freezing…it’s Spring!

So when I rolled out of bed this morning my first thought was, “It can’t be a progressive day.”  I went through my usual routine; shut the alarm 3x, got up, made coffee, wondered if it was a day to make school lunch, wondered what I was having for lunch because I way overdid it on the carbs this weekend.  Boiled eggs and sat down about to scroll Facebook when a podcast I recently listened to said, “show up. Get your ass to the seat and show up.”  He was also explaining how not every time you sit you’ll have some phenomenal piece of writing and how the more we don’t write the less chance we’ll have at becoming good at this and I remembered my 1st yoga experience. I recall the 1st few days and weeks watching yogis on my computer or in class and feeling my body resist the poses and not being able to even “push my heart forward”.  Completely not getting what they meant by that and wondering if I could actually take my heart out of my chest and lift it up in one hand to the sky and say, “here, here’s my heart. Is this what you intended?”

I used to get so frustrated with myself and the teachers and roll my eyes in class or on my mat at home. I used to actually suck my teeth and press pause on the video and say, “this lady’s nuts!” Fast forward 3 years and I now stretch and push and push my heart forward in ways I never thought my body could or was supposed to.  I laugh when I can’t do a pose and cry when I do others, mostly the simple poses where my heart is pushed forward or up to the sky.  When I am in a position that is most vulnerable, I cry.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, you never want to be perfect then you’d have nothing to achieve for.  It does, however, get you to want to keep trying and to open up in ways you never thought you could. It does get you to just sit down or get you to show up.  Practice has taught me that whatever I want to do, as long as I show up and show up every day, I can do it. It’s shown me strength and courage because even on my worst days I’d show up.  Even when my mind went backward and I couldn’t fathom the thought of showing up for anyone or anything, I’d push through the fear and show up scared and the best things came from it.  I proved to myself that I’m worth more alive and living life than I am sitting on a couch hoping for life to tap me on the shoulder and say, “ready?”

Life is always moving forward, it’s always ready for you, you just gotta show up. It’s not going to stop and wait for you to jump on.  It’s going to keep going and keep making memories without you. If you keep losing yourself to your mind & keep listening to what’s up there and not what’s beating in the middle of your chest, life will move forward.  The heart is your truest self, it will never steer you wrong.  So show up, even on your worst days, even on the days that you tell yourself “it’s not worth it, for what?”  Just do it, do it scared and see how you feel.