What Not to Wear
Have you watched that TV reality show, What Not to Wear? Stacy and Clinton transform someone from blah to beautiful with a few simple but powerful beauty and clothing tips. The fascinating part, though, as you watch the show, you discover that the real transformation is not in the new outfits or the spruced up makeup and new hairdo, but it is in the confidence the participant gains when they are forced to acknowledge, live with and love the skin that they are in. They are encouraged, forcefully perhaps, to dig deep and find out who they really are. Then they discover that there was a beautiful person in there all along!
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings everywhere, be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life, contribute in some way, to that happiness and to that freedom for all.
This is a Sanskrit mantra that we often recite as part of our yoga practice, to bring awareness to suffering around us, and to remind us to look outside of ourselves. We hear this mantra and we often think first of saving the whales, or rehabitating the polar bears, or finding homes for abandoned puppies. But it says all beings everywhere. That means us, too. You and Me. Happy and free.
I am in class the other day with one of Yoga West’s amazing teachers (they are all great, aren’t they?), who is trained in and practices primarily Anusara yoga. Anusara yoga is a beautiful, freeing practice. She invited us throughout the class to only do poses that were “life affirming,” and where we could be “happy and free.” I totally get that. I couldn’t do half of the crazy poses she was doing, and I was quite content with it. I didn’t judge myself for not being like her, or for not being able to do the poses quite as beautifully. I will never get to some of those asanas; I found it quite life affirming to just sit on my mat and watch. I was happy and free!
Fast forward a couple of hours, and I find myself in a dressing room with a stack of blue jeans to try on. Now, trying on jeans is right up there with trying on swim suits, right? And it gets less and less fun as the years go by. And once again, the jeans that I have picked to try on are the same size that I wore 18 years and two babies ago. I ALWAYS walk into the dressing room with a stack of too small jeans in my hands. The smart part of my brain knows that they are not going to fit, but the heart part of my brain hopes that maybe, this time, my thighs will slide right in. And once again, they don’t fit. Discontent. Not feeling happy and free.
Why do I do this? Maybe you do it, too. Why can’t I give myself the freedom to be happy in my own skin? To be happy and free? It is not just about the jeans. We often go through our lives with some level of discontent about who we are, how we look, how much money we have….whatever your own bag of discontent holds. And that discontent holds us back from true happiness and freedom. We can’t change who we are or how we look or what we have in this very moment, so why not give ourselves permission to just be happy where we are today?
The Sanskrit word for contentment is Santosha. Santosha is one of the Niyamas discussed in Patajali’s Yoga Sutras. The practice of Santosha is about cultivating peace and contentment within yourself. It is important to note that contentment is not the same thing as happiness. One key to living in Santosha is to neither long for the past nor worry about the future. It is about bringing awareness to your responsibility for being where you are right now, and accepting it. You can more forward from there.
In response, I often walk away from the jeans, angry that once again I don’t fit into THAT size. The irony is that I don’t even WANT to be the person that I was 18 years and two babies ago! That person didn’t have the safe home, supportive marriage, beautiful children, and the freedom to volunteer to her hearts content AND run a yoga business, that I have now. So why do I care if her jeans were a size smaller?
Back to the yoga class. It seems that while I was content to NOT be someone else, I perhaps wasn’t completely content with who I was, really. It is easy to not want to be someone else. Much harder to want to be the person that you are, right?
I am not suggesting that we should all be perfectly content with our ailments and bad habits and our big bag of discontent. We all have things that we can work on to improve our quality of life and how we feel moving though it. But if we start from a place of contentment about who we really are right now, then we have a much better chance of being happy and free. And from there, we can then bring happiness to ourselves and others. And to the polar bears or the puppies, or whatever it is for you.
So try to make a point to let go of what doesn’t fit. Don’t wear judgments about yourself that don’t fit who you are today. May all beings everywhere be happy and free. This includes you. And me.
I bought the bigger jeans. They fit who I am today. I will try to be content with that!
