On The Voice last week, Celo Green picked a country artist. He said he wanted to go to a place where he's never been.
These past few weeks in yoga, our teachers have been asking us to "go to a place we've never been before" in each pose. They tell us to push until we fall out of the pose. They say there's no judgment in falling out of the pose. Everyone does. Falling out means your working hard. It's not how many times you fall out – it's how many times you get right back in it.
I have gotten complacent in standing bow pose. I found the "sweet spot" in the balance, and could stand there on one leg for the full sixty seconds. When the teacher said "body down, leg up, go to your max", I'd just ignore her plea and hang in my comfort zone. These past two weeks she's been stressing moving past your comfort zone and going to that "place you've never been before". I was curious about this place, hearing it everyday in yoga, then from Celo, too. So, this week I pushed harder, fell out of the pose a couple of times, but I still couldn't seem to get past the fear of leaning farther forward and catching myself until I fall headfirst onto my hand. Today was the breakthrough. Each day I see the tip of my toe peek up behind my head in the mirror. Today, as I pulled out all the stops, for about two seconds before I fell onto my left hand, I saw my whole right foot high above my head, my hip opened in an oddly smooth way, and a giant rush of emotion was released. I found a place I've never been before.
As it is in yoga, so it is in life. Sometimes we get too comfortable where we are in life. We get complacent. We hang in our comfort zone. We plateau. Our energy begins to wane, and we hear ourselves question our happiness somewhere in the back of our mind. This is a signal for change. Maybe not a change of what we are doing, just a change in how we are doing it. Can we push a little harder? Can we go to a place we've never been before? What is there waiting for us? What kind of experience can we potentially have there? What happens if we "fall out"?
And so, as another day goes by, I'm learning not to fear the unknown, but to look at it as an unopened gift, and…I have written.
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