Go Easy on Yourself

On Wednesday nights I go to a yoga class, it's my second term with this particular group of people, and I finally actually like the style. It took me quite a while to figure out just what the devil we were aiming for, and after perusing this site, which is where the people who are my teachers trained, (and some of them have trained with Vanda Scaravelli) plus with a few well-placed comments from the teachers, I now "get the point" and quite like it. So a week ago Wednesday JL was teaching for Lisa, who had to be away, and she decided that we should do the wheel. For the record, I did it; you basically push down with your hands and feet and your back goes up. Getting out of it was a different matter, however, as we were near the end of class and I was tired, so I sort of fell out of it....you don't "float" out of it as easily as you float in I guess. It's an advanced sort of a pose, I find out later. Anyway, during the week I give it a go and of course can't for the life of me float up into anything, so I quit trying so hard and then it was easier and I managed to get in and get out of the thing without falling over. Big pat on the back, thank you very much.

This week when I went to class, Lisa and JL were talking about the wheel from the week before, and I said oh, I tried it and I could do it, if you don't fight then it's not too hard. (I used to teach tai chi and I always found that by instructing the students not to think so much, they would get the postures.) JL looked at me and said, "We did that after a lot of warmups. Go easy on yourself; you don't have to get it right away."

And I thought, "Well now that is something we don't hear or say very often: Go Easy on Yourself." How high are your expectations of your day-to-day existence? Do you think that you should be able to do everything on your list, or do some things fall by the wayside? If that happens do you let them go or do you insist that they must all be done before the end of the day? When do you stop? Do you beat yourself up over stupid, small things?

My expectations of myself are very high, and yes I think that I should be able to do everything, and if things fall off the list I let them stay there but it bothers me to no end. (so I guess I don't let them stay there.) When do I stop? Um, never? Do I beat myself up over small, stupid things? Oh you don't know the half of them....

What this comes down to is that going easy on oneself is not as straightforward as it sounds. We must have expectations, certainly, otherwise why would we bother to get out of bed? We must do the best possible job all the time, I really believe that. I also believe that incorporating some "going easy" is part of doing the best job....and I am learning to go easy. Learning to forgive myself for silly mistakes, and these seem equally difficult to forgive as the big mistakes, so quite frankly it really doesn't matter what I'm forgiving myself for because it's all difficult. There are some little things, they are nothings in the big scheme of things really, that when I think of them the only way to get the embarassment out of my head is to hum tunelessly: my personal version of covering my ears and yelling, "lalalalalalalala!!!" to make it disappear. This isn't exactly forgiving oneself, this is more like putting the bitter pill away under a pillow somewhere and hoping that it doesn't resurface. My grandmother used to hum when she was thinking about money....and she didn't like to think about money.

It's Friday, take the weekend, go easy on yourself. You don't have to do everything, you don't have to be everything, you don't have to meet anyone's expectations, sometimes not even your own. Too many of us are racing around, stressed out and useless. In the end you will be remembered for who you were, not what you did. Go easy. Forgive yourself.