Accepting the Pace

Doing things on my terms is very important to me. As an only child, I not only need things done to my liking, but they must also be done on my timeline. Sometimes, that means when I call for a hair appointment on a Tuesday at 4:30, I need for my stylist to be available in one of 3 time slots I have available before family pictures Sunday. And sometimes that means when I see a cool yoga pose or sequence on Instagram, I immediately convince myself that I can and should be able to do it, regardless of my own flexibility and strength. And sometimes that means when I wait years and finally decide it’s time to have another baby, I want it to happen on the day and time that I’ve planned.

Well, guess what? Sometimes things don’t get to be on my terms. Sometimes, patience is forced. Learn to wait. Accept the pace. Allow things to happen naturally and on their own time.

The yoga mat is a great place to practice accepting the pace. Triangle pose (Trikonasana) is my pinnacle. In my head, I’ve always kind of thought that I was dominating Trikonasana in most every yoga class. I felt like my long limbs were right where they should be and I could be modeling this popular, and pretty staple pose. But then in every class, the teacher would come over to ME (in sometimes really crowded rooms) and pull my shoulder back and push my hips forward. “Imagine you’re sliding between 2 panes of glass,” they would instruct, as if talking directly to me and only me. During my teacher training, on the day of learning to cue Trikonasana, my leaders asked me to stay AFTER CLASS so they could straighten up my triangle pose. How embarrassing. I thought I was nailing it…

This pose has triggered me for a long time. “Follow the cues, feel it in your body, use the props offered, and you’re still going to screw it up. The teacher will single you out as the ‘what not to do example’,” I’d tell myself. I realized through this process that this happens to me off the mat, as well. I hold on tightly to criticism and failure and then I get gun-shy. I build up my confidence in my head and then when I realize I’m not as good as I thought, I back off and tend to give up.

What I need to do, instead, is ACCEPT THE PACE. Don’t jump to the assumption of failure so quickly. Listen to and feel the well-intentioned teachers who try to adjust me. Accept this as constructive to my practice and know that a perfect triangle pose doesn’t just happen because I’m cued into it. Let my hamstring stretch allllll the way out before hinging at the waist and tucking my tailbone and rolling my shoulder back. Don’t rush it. It might take years. But be okay with the journey and the discovery along the way and everything I’ve learned to get there.

And as I take this off the mat, I will continue to accept the pace of life. I’ll be reminded that things won’t happen on my terms. Sometimes, I will get lucky and squeeze in that hair appointment. And someday, I might finally nail a perfect Trikonasana in a crowded yoga class (but really, who cares?!). And yes, I’ll even come to accept that I might not get a Baby #3 (and if I do, I won’t get to schedule its birthday so precisely) so then I get to appreciate even more just how super lucky I got with my #1 & #2.

“The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” ~Rumi