Be the best you you can be…. No one else can be a better you!

Have you ever been in a situation where someone tells you to do something and you really don’t feel comfortable doing it, for whatever reason, but rather than speak up you get caught up in the banter or cave under pressure and end up falling flat on your face…. Well this happened to me this week- Literally! However, once I got over the bruised ego and nose… I actually started to realize the link between this on the mat experience with the day-to-day fears we all face… and more importantly how we deal with them.

It all started when I went to a Dharma Mittra yoga class…. It was my own fault because I didn’t check to see what class it was. I actually thought I was going to a Vinyasa Flow class… It was a very challenging class and although the teacher was very advanced as were a few of the students, I struggled through it and felt totally out of my comfort zone. It really challenged what my whole yoga practice is about and went against my own teaching.

In my classes I encourage students to focus on their own mat space, to make the practice their own and to listen to their bodies. However in this class I felt a pressure to do poses I knew my body was not flexible enough for and that I wasn’t confident with…. So rather than challenging my body and working deeper into the new poses I constantly went too far and was left frustrated and totally lost my concentration on my own practice. I was trying a forearm balance, without my usual safety net of the wall behind me, and I felt the fear and gave in to it! I literally fell flat on my face and my body did a very ungraceful wallop onto the ground behind me. I had instant flashbacks to when I was a child and tried to do something crazy on my roller blades when my mum told me not to and ended up crashing to the ground. The only difference was this time my mum was not there to pick me up! I peeled myself off the ground and honestly had to hold back the tears…. For the rest of the class I just tried to hold myself together and stop my bottom lip from wobbling. I was so relieved when it was over and I could leave the class but I was totally shook for the rest of the day.

Later that evening I was trying to work out why this experience had gotten to me so much. Was it that I was upset that I couldn’t do all the poses? Was it because I had lost concentration and fallen? Or was it because no one came to see if I was ok and pick me up? I couldn’t answer it. It was only during the week when I thought back on it that I started to make sense of it all. It had absolutely nothing to do with yoga it came down to my belief in me. As soon as the class started and I saw some of the poses being pulled out of the teachers bag I thought ‘I can’t do this’ and rather than focus on my own practice, as I preach to my students all the time, I let what was going on around me totally influence me because I lost my confidence. The confidence to listen to how I felt, to voice my opinion and stay true to me.

I was faced with another situation this week where I was asked to interview for a job totally outside the world of yoga. There was a little part of me that thought ‘Oh I should do this’ I felt the fear again, in a totally different context this time but instead of caving in to it I felt the fear and followed my heart and my own voice. I politely declined the opportunity to interview and thanked the person for thinking of me. I packed my bag and went to the studio and taught one of the best yoga classes I have ever taught. I also went to a yoga class and found myself able to do poses with ease, which my body often struggles with. I fell out of a few handstands and lost my balance a few times but I stuck with them and felt so proud of myself.

Life constantly offers us choices and puts challenging situations in front of us but no one can choose the right path for anyone but themselves. I know sometimes I will make the wrong choice and I will fall flat on my face but I will also learn from my mistakes. Once I know that the choice I took was mine there is no need to cave into any fear or pressure.

As one teacher in a class I was in this week told us all- Be the best you you can be, because no one else can be a better you! 

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