I hate Yoga.  I don’t want to hate yoga, but I do.  It’s one of those things that I wish I liked, and I keep trying to like, but every time I’ve gone with my Mom, or a friend—no matter what gym or what instructor I’ve had, I HATE IT! Here is a typical scenario:

I am told encouragingly by the instructor to contort my body into some unnatural shape and I’m craning my neck to see what the hell she’s doing  because I don’t know the pose by name like all the other people.  I look and think, “How the hell is she doing THAT!?!”

Then I try to put my body like hers and I look down and have to stop myself from laughing because my attempt looks Nothing Like Hers.  Then, I try to refocus and I hear her say something like, “Now, hold that pose.  Go deeper into it.  Notice your breathing.”

Meanwhile, I’m precariously balanced on one foot that is shaking.  My calf muscle is twitching, and my arm that is nervously flailing around in the air and I grimace to myself, “How can I fucking concentrate on my breathing, I’m going to FALL OVER!”

The perfectly balanced people must be looking at me with compassion for the Noob (which I hate), but the thing that I like the least is that all of the poses HURT.  Like, REALLY Hurt.  I know that it is a workout, but still, it BUUURNS.  And then you have to stay stuck that way forever.  I hate it.

Before I left California (still willing myself to like yoga) I decided to try HOT Yoga.  I walked up to meet my friend who swears by yoga and I looked menacingly at the words on the glass, ‘H O T’ painted all fire and wondered WTF I was doing there.  Don’t I hate Yoga?

I went into class, or rather, the pit of Fire and Doom, and immediately started gasping for air.  It felt like inhaling fire.  So there I am inhaling fire and hating my life, holding another shaky pose with the holier-than- thou instructor looking perfectly muscular, balanced and skinny rattling off unnecessary phrases like, “Ok good, now go Deeper into the stretch.  Doesn’t that feel GOOOD?”

I’m convinced she’s mocking me by her invincible flexibility.  “What is she made of, bendy rubber?” I’m seriously sliding in my own sweat and thinking I want to kill my friend for making me go to bendy hot hell.

After class, my friend looked at me with excitement, hoping she’d converted me over to the Yoga Lover’s Club and asked me,

“How did you like it?”

“I HATED IT,” I answered, immediately feeling guilty from the look of disappointment on her face.  I’ve seen that from other Yoga converts before, so I tried to brush it off.

“Sorry,” I pleaded.  “It’s just not my thing.  Let’s go eat.  I’m starving.”

During dinner, she had me convinced that Yoga has changed her life and how good it feels and that it is just the first part that hurts.  And then you get all perfect and bendy just like everybody else in the class.  She was so Happy when she talked about it, I wished I could be that way about it.

“Just come to one more class, OK?”

“Alright,” I said reluctantly, immediately wishing I hadn’t.  I HATE YOGA!  What was I even thinking?!?!

It took me forever to make it to that second class, but it hung over me like a guilty cloud.  Why on earth had I agreed to go to sweaty bendy hell instead of just agreeing to meet for a meal or something sensible?

Here is how that class went:  Horrible. Every toxin in my whole body must’ve decided to come out that day, all at once because I was like a shaking drug addict or something.  I couldn’t get it together.  Even the easy poses were fucking nightmares and as I failed around dripping sweat and glanced at the other freaks that loved this, I hated them all.  *Especially* the eighty year old man that decided to wear Speedos and showed all his furry bits to me.

The instructor was nice enough to remember my name, and even this turned out to be bad.  She kept saying things to me like,

“Ok, Brooke, can you go a bit deeper into that pose?”

The answer was always NO. But I could at least keep it in my head.  Maybe it was the heat, though because at the second time she asked me, it became slightly audible.

And then, every time after she asked (which seemed to be every frickin’ pose) I started saying it for real until finally it was loud, “NOOOOOOOOO!”

Everyone turned to look.  She finally stopped asking me.

I walked out of there a shaky, sweaty, miserable mess wishing to god that I could keep my inside voice to myself.

I’ve never done Yoga since.  And I still hate it.

Living in Thailand is funny.  Pretty much every day I am confronted by something weird, unpredictable, and mind-blowing.  To say that I have gotten used to the oddities is an understatement, because at this point of my life, I just expect things to be a bit strange.  In fact, the one thing I have recognized is this:  I will never have it all figured out.

This sent me on a questioning journey and I’ve realized some interesting cultural things.  First of all, us westerners are obsessed “figuring it all out”.  Until I changed cultures, I thought this was normal.  But having lived abroad for almost a year and a half, I’m learning that it is just western cultures that stress themselves out about this.  For some reason, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to try to figure our whole life out and the question I’m posing here today is this…

WHY?

Why do we have the need to Figure It All Out?

Is it making us HAPPY?  Is it making us RELAXED? Is it making us REAL? 

After spending much time questioning this in my own head and my own life, I have realized that the answer is:  NO!!

The pressure to have our “act together” is making us Unhappy, Stressed-Out, and Fake.  But, here is the problem…. Everybody’s doing it!!  This blog is just a little wake-up call for us to be a little more honest with each other, and a little more honest with ourselves.

The Biggest Secret in the World

OK, brace yourself!  I’m going to let you in on the biggest secret in the world.  But first, some dramatic build up…

Most of us feel the need to self-promote, showcase our abilities, and act as if we have got everything all figured out.  Looking back, I think this was the most stressful part of being an American.  Almost everyone there was portraying an image that they had their shit together, and knew what they were doing.  When I started my consulting practice, I was TERRIFIED that I would not know all of the answers, be able to help people properly, or that I would make mistakes.

It wasn’t until I started consulting with people that I realized The Biggest Secret In The World.  Each business owner would reluctantly tell me after some amount of time, and almost in a whisper of desperation,

“I have absolutely NO Idea what I’m doing!”

And after working in the field of transformational change for three years now, I can honestly answer the same way I always have,

“It’s OK, nobody does.”

Nobody.  It’s True!  So relax, because…

Nobody Has it “All Figured Out”

I think much of the problem and stress that comes from our “Civilized Society” stems from people pretending to have it all figured out.  After all, if everyone around you is playing the “I have it all figured out” game, you naturally assume that you need to do the same. 

The fantasy becomes a reality when suddenly we actually believe that everyone has their life sorted, and we become anxious, nervous, and depressed trying to play catch up and figure it out too.  This obsession spirals out of control by then mixing our own personal identity with societies’ goals and eventually we realize we can’t do it all.

All we can do is to help people with what we do know, and figure out the rest as we go along.

Not that we can’t have our own personal dream…. In fact, it is just the opposite.  We cannot realize our own personal dream if we are trying to look perfect by everyone else’s standards.  We can only find our true self, and our true happiness once we abandon the idea of looking perfect, or acting like we have it all figured out.

Just Figure Out Yourself

Once we understand this, and stop playing by everyone else’s rules, we can begin to focus on our own individual needs and dreams.  We can focus on what we want specifically from life, and what skills and gifts we want to bring to the party.  The game changes as we realize that other people’s opinions matter less and less, and we begin to put our own happiness at the forefront of our lives.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t have it all figured out!!  My wants, needs, and desires have changed over the years, but what I can say is that I have sorted out how to align my life with the lifestyle of my dreams.  When my wants or needs change, I adapt my plan and behaviors.  I’ve accepted that this is going to be an ongoing process, and that I will never be done, finished, or perfect.  The best that I can hope for at any given moment is to be real.

Comments?  Questions?  Are you stressing yourself out by trying to look perfect or figure everything out??

Over the past several months, I’ve noticed a sneaky-little-emotion called Resentment.  It tends to creep in and create unproductive thoughts, stopping me in my forward momentum, and keeps me from enjoying moments in life.  Maybe you have experienced similar areas of resistance in your life?

Resenting work

One major personal realization I’ve made lately is around my attitude of work.  My whole life, I’ve repelled the idea of work.  This started at an early age for me.  Growing up with a father as a business owner, I was working full time at age 14.  This was during he summers while everyone else was sitting at the pool talking about boys.  I worked to support myself through high school, and worked and did sports teams in college. 

It seemed like there was always work to be done, and never any time for me! While my dad had all kinds of reasons why this was a good thing for me, I resented it.

I’m sure it was valuable experience, and did get me further, faster, but it also left me feeling quite strange.  Why were all these other kids getting to enjoy life, and have time off, and I was having to work so hard (as a child) to just live???

Looking at it now, I think this left me feeling unloved and like something was wrong with me.  Winning approval from my father was like trying to impress a statue.  No matter what I did or how hard I tried, there was no reaction.  Somehow, in the end, I lumped all of these feelings of inadequacy into  a pretty unhealthy attitude about having to take care of myself.  I had to take care of myself, because nobody else would.

Resenting gender roles

Gender roles can become a confusing issue when taking care of ourselves.  In many families, it is modeled that the male is more of the dominant provider while the woman tends to be more domestic and takes care of the family.  Seeing this modeling growing up, I pretty much expected that at some point there would be a man in my life that would earn more than me and take care of things. (And I, in turn, would take care of him, the house, and domestics.)

I have always resented being a female. I don’t want the traditional life of husband, house, children, but on the flip-side, it seems so difficult to break into the work-world and be taken seriously by men. It seems like males always get the break, the better jobs, and the better salaries.

Even in business, I feel I’ve had to prove myself twice as hard because I am a female.  I would think I’d be going to meet with a new client, and they just wanted to date me. Oftentimes I’ve been cast off as “just a girl” and once was asked by a former boss “Can’t you just sit there and look pretty?!?”

Resisting authority

Ever since I started teaching in Thailand, I’ve had to face massive negative thoughts and resistance.  From my alarm clock, to my boss, to my thoughts in my head, I was pretty much cursing the world until about noon each day. This went on for about the first three months.  Then, from a series of trying to just work through it and stop resisting, I was able to let it go and move past it.  It was surprising and shocking for me to realize that I could be in such a peaceful place for the past five years (not having to deal with an alarm or boss), but the second I put myself in a position of a subordinate, I was completely freaking out!

I think I’ve never really had a “real job” with regular hours or bosses or expectations because it hit all my buttons from working as a kid.

Once something “went wrong” or someone pissed me off, I would quit.  And then it was over. I think because I liked the ‘re-creating my life’ part, I saw the next thing as a new adventure, but still never really landed on anything till I started my business.  It has been a struggle, to say the least, to get it going and running from abroad…  and I am trying to make decisions that will help me stay on here longer.  Teaching is a great way to get a work permit and earn some extra money while I build my business up over the next year.  But it has helped me to realize the importance of accepting authority (rather than avoiding it) and realizing that the resisting it really has only gotten in my own way.

Resisting “what is”

I think I’ve focused most of my life on “Trying to create the perfect situation”.  Recently I was hit with the brick on my head that it NOT All About Creating the Perfect Situation, but it is also about Accepting What Is. Maybe it is about a 50/ 50 split. You can partly create an ideal situation, but no situation is completely ideal.  We all have to learn to just go along with life and handle our emotions as they come up. 

Things are going to be unpredictable, hard, frustrating, annoying, not make sense, and piss you off. I think part of taking care of yourself is learning how to handle yourself in these situations.  By becoming stronger and dealing with difficult situations (rather than avoiding them), you are actually taking better care of yourself. This was a BIG BIG BIG realization for me because it meant I don’t have to keep hopping around the globe re-creating some ideal scenario and then giving up (rather quickly) when it doesn’t “work out”. If I look back, honestly, I’ve been doing that since I was 16.

Life beyond resentment

By no means have I mastered this one yet, but what I’ve found helpful so far is to Observe the Resentment. This has been an effective exercise in helping me to see past the illusions I’m creating, and look deeper at the root cause.  Mostly, I’ve found out that these emotions fade, and I can be more enjoyable and productive if I face my resistance straight on.  When I feel my teeth clenching, my body tensing, and my head on overdrive repeating “I HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE”, I now meet it with a simple question…   Why?

I continue to drill down and nearly every answer results in some sort of anxiety rooted in my childhood work situation.  Maybe I’m crazy sitting there and talking to myself like a maniac, but, honestly, it works. I continue to ask myself why I am feeling (anxious, nervous, trapped, annoyed) and more times than not, I get some form of:  because that’s what I felt as a kid and I hated it.

But why should what I felt as a child get in the way of my success as an adult?

Simply put, If I want to get beyond it, I have got to get over it. Letting go of old hurt and resistance frees up mental space and allows us to grow, so that’s what I’m going to do. I need to get over the resentment, because there is life beyond it.

That said, what are the areas of resistance in your life?

Are you holding on to any resentment that is keeping you stuck?

Thanks for your comments!!