Ever noticed how your emotions can hold you hostage in your life? As it’s Halloween, I invite you to take on one of the biggies. FEAR.
It’s natural to respond to fear by running away from it, hiding from it, dodging it. All great tactics if the fear is in response to a real threat to your life. But often, let’s take a reality check… it’s really not. What you’re experiencing is just an uncomfortable emotion that’s bubbled up because of a need that’s not being met. In this case, your need to feel safe.
But consider this. If you want to live a life of adventure and growth, if you want to evolve, push past boundaries, experience success, blast through your goals – big chance at some point you’ll need to step out of your safe zone, and move some place you’ll feel stretched (horrific pun but on theme, so stay with me).
Deciding to sign up and stick with a yoga class can feel a little scary, especially if you’re a beginner or you feel your mobility is limited right now. But ask yourself, could you be allowing your emotions to deny you an experience that could lead to your growth or even reaching your full potential? The moment you restrict yourself to only ‘safe places’ is the moment you stop living. Soul death…a life unfulfilled… now that’s scary. Isn’t it?
“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
Oscar Wilde.
No one wants to look back on their life and think what if? So maybe it’s time to bust through whatever fears are holding you back from doing what you know in your soul is what you want and need to do to get where you want to be in this world – at home, work or play.
As ever, I’m here to serve…so let’s start small by getting to the root of a few yoga nightmares and putting them straight to bed.
A Beginner’s Top 5 Yoga Nightmares Put to Bed
Yoga Nightmare No.1: Everyone in class will be able to touch the floor – but I can’t.
Reality Check: Someone isn’t necessarily a better student because they can touch their hands to the floor. So don’t focus on what you can and can’t do. Celebrate progress and enjoy your own personal experience.
Yoga Nightmare No.2: If I can’t do it all I’ll be made to feel a bad yogi.
Reality Check: Think about it. There’s really no place more supportive than a yoga class. The aim of any yoga teacher is to make you feel safe, successful and accepted.
Yoga Nightmare No.3: I’ll screw it up.
Reality Check: Maybe. We all do now and then. A quote I read by Judith Hanson sums it up: “We are on the earth to screw things up and figure it out…we try to clean up the mess and learn from it, we are here to explore the things we can’t do as well as what we can, with love and attention.
Yoga Nightmare No.4: I’ll turn into a hippie and my friends will think I’ve gone all woo woo.
Reality Check: Yoga can challenge your beliefs, how you behave and how you think about things. These are all great ways to find fulfilment, happiness and success in all areas of your life but that doesn’t mean you have to conform to any stereotype or go join a religion. Yoga is simply a practice that helps you find union and wholeness in your world in your way.
Yoga Nightmare No.5: I won’t be able to keep up.
Reality Check: Once in a while a class will offer something to challenge everyone. That’s the time to be prepared to step out and challenge yourself in an intelligent questioning way. Always find your limit and respectfully stand back from it a bit if you need to. Will you always do everything perfectly in sequence? Nope, but you are committing to move in the direction of progress and wholeness – and that’s yoga.
There are some marvellous things to learn in yoga. And not just yoga, in life. So don’t be a hostage to your fears. Step out, show up, be prepared to be slightly uncomfortable and start to move towards achieving your goals.
Keep talking. If you’d like to join the conversation or share your insights and stories, let’s hear from you. Leave a comment below.
