scary full potential

the other night in yoga, i attempted to do something i refer to as damn hard. i attempted L pose which is this insane pose where you make your body into a ninety degree angle (mine is more like a 105 degree angle with a saggy middle) with your feet on the wall and your hands supporting you.

no this picture is not me, and i mainly chose it for the awesome 80s leg warmers. i could only wish to be so cool.

so when i do the L pose my arms shake like a mini earthquake is occurring right under my arms. after a somewhat more successful L pose experience (my yoga teacher held my hips up) we attempted to do a handstand. a lot easier but i encountered a funny thing.

fear.

it makes me want to laugh out loud now. fear. in the moments after attempting an assisted handstand, we had to try one on our own. i got in the right position, tried to kick up my feet, got all excited about doing it, and then that damn funny fear got in my way. it invaded my brain and momentarily paralyzed my body. i couldn't move.

in those short moments i thought, why am i so afraid? there is a wall near me, it is not like i am going to completely fall over. the instructor began talking about rooting into our full potential and it hit me. i bet this is what my students feel like when they come face to face (but not upside down) with their truest potential.

it is scary to imagine ourselves more powerful, more focused, more aligned, more in tune with who our truest selves are. when we come face to face with our fullest potential, what do we do? run the other way. at least that is what i tend to do.

our fullest potential means that we have taken the risk to be okay with failure. it means we do not give any excuses for not being our best and already whole selves. as a younger self, i used to make up excuses for not doing well at something. the weather, hurt wrists, not enough sleep, you name it. somehow i couldn't come face to face with failure or the fact that i was not perfect (in the sense that i did everything right.)

i have not been practicing yoga very long. and to tell you the truth i am not that great at it, but i realize every time i walk into the studio that being great at it is not the point, not even close to the point. embracing my whole self, fear, and the instinct to run from my fullest potential is exactly what it is about right now. i have to let go of my need for perfection which is really just another way to run from me.

there is a lot of fear in the world due to money. both far and close to home. i think about what it will take to live with less- what it will take to redefine priorities, and to perhaps lose the job i love so much. then i think about the handstand. i have a choice, do the pose or not, run or not, embrace it all and not allow the fear to dominate my life or the way i interact with people i love and the strangers around me

or not.

all this in a five minute pose.
damn yoga.

damn potential.


photo is compliments of elsie's yoga found from a random google search.