Let’s Get Messy

I’ve been considering perfectionism a lot lately. For much of my life I’ve felt torn between a tamed, law abiding version of myself that was trying to be and look the way I believed was expected of me and one that flees for the wild, following its own path the moment it’s let loose. In these recent ponderings I’ve noticed that all the places I’ve tried to be perfect have proved to be the most bizarre limitation.

What some authority has decided about you cannot come close to what you are capable of. We cannot know the infinity that we truly are with the mind and we cannot know ourselves from the outside in; instead we have to feel for it. You posses over twice the amount of energy that every nuclear bomb ever detonated released. Quite literally you are the energy potential of 30 000 atomic bombs. Don’t try to squash all that down to fit into a pair of size 6 jeans.

Yoga asana is a never-ending, ever-evolving realm and I am continually amazed by the new subtle experiences, feelings and energetic understandings that arise. If we believe in perfectionism and an ideal given to us by some external power, then we’re sold the lie that at some point we’ll be a finished product. You stop when you think your practice, both on and off the mat, is complete and because of it you don’t even begin to tap your boundlessness.

It’s like telling an elephant calf, with all its enormous potential for growth, that if it eats its greens it’ll grow up to be the size of a warthog some day. Luckily elephants have an innate sense of their potential (and their mothers don’t tell such lies).

In the same way when you tap in, listen, find your edges and sit at them you start to sense the infinite light of your being and your connection to All.

Try not to define your greatness and strive towards that, instead allow it to unfold or explode you.