Always makes me smile when I bump into my ego on the mat. It all starts from simple things....
When my teacher correct postures for other students (or when she's giving other students attention), I can hear my voice saying: " what about me? " Me, me , me, all about me, how self-centred I am and no consideration to other people. And when she corrects my alignment, my voice says " what about her? (could be anyone apart from me, of course) " can't win, can't you?
I realised when I come into recovery (from drug & alcohol addiction), I wasn't the centre of the Universe. Actually, I'm a part of the universe, not the centre. It was hard to accept that I wasn't significant to other people other than to myself and my family. For example, I am sitting in a cafe as I'm writing this, having my drink, about 25 people here. They all don't know me. Funny thing is that when my addiction was/is in full power, I tend to think " Hey, don't you know me? I'm Norie! I'm special." Beginning to think I should get a special treat... It's quite comical really my brain actually does that, and start to believe it.
Another voice I hear in my head is to start comparing with myself to other students who are more advanced or longer experience on yoga etc, and make myself feeling inferior, jealousy, insecurity, all leads to my self-confident and self-esteem. I came from such a low self esteem ( non- existence) , sometimes challenging to build up.
Again, once go back to my practise, they all go. I start concentrate on practise I'm doing, and remember to be grateful and happy with what I have today, and all my ego start disappearing.
Actually I really love and appreciate when my teachers correct my postures. Sadly, my favourite youtube yoga teachers can't come out from my laptop and correct me.... (I hope to save up money to go to see them!) I sometimes blame those vids, "too fast!" "too advanced for me!" and thinking of giving up. I always gave up things I couldn't do especially when I was growing up, it was easy to give up but hard to build self-esteem from that. Those behaviour creep up on my yoga mat.
When I come across challenging situations, these days, I tend to try out different ways to crack them. Just like how I do my practise. Instead of blaming others (youtube video/ teachers), I slowly work towards those yoga poses, and take a baby step by step. . ., this works for me fine. Only me making things complicate and difficult for myself (silly me!), that is why I need to remember to make things simple....
One more voice I hear was....complaining about Ashtanga yoga. I used to moan a lot.
I never liked ashtanga yoga, once I did it loooong time ago, I didn't like it. But I gave it another go, and I booked 6weeks class for beginners classes. Tried a few, then still did not like it. Then good few years passed. One day, I was watching youtube and found a video completely changed my attitude towards it. This person was doing so peacefully and calmly. Now I found peace and serenity in the yoga. What an beautiful practise! Since then, I've been trying out workshops and home practise. I see the same peace in martial arts, kung fu, karate, kyu-dou, calligraphy etc, they all have it.
I want that peace.
By the way,
I remember when I was growing up, I used to go to classes in calligraphy for 6 years and it was a part of study subjects too (so I did about 12 years in total...), if my attention was everywhere I could not write/draw. I needed to centre myself and be calm to do it... I didn't know that time, I just realised recently. I had ADHD (still have, but those days, it was worse and there was no such diagnosis, of course), I found really hard to keep still and I just did not have enough attention span to do it, so, I did what I could manage. I still do, I just do what I can manage, not doing everything anymore. I'm still "human being", not "human-doing".
For me, that's why yoga helps. Qi gong helps.
After my class, I walk home and give myself smile meeting my ego on my mat.
When I come across challenging situations, these days, I tend to try out different ways to crack them. Just like how I do my practise. Instead of blaming others (youtube video/ teachers), I slowly work towards those yoga poses, and take a baby step by step. . ., this works for me fine. Only me making things complicate and difficult for myself (silly me!), that is why I need to remember to make things simple....
I never liked ashtanga yoga, once I did it loooong time ago, I didn't like it. But I gave it another go, and I booked 6weeks class for beginners classes. Tried a few, then still did not like it. Then good few years passed. One day, I was watching youtube and found a video completely changed my attitude towards it. This person was doing so peacefully and calmly. Now I found peace and serenity in the yoga. What an beautiful practise! Since then, I've been trying out workshops and home practise. I see the same peace in martial arts, kung fu, karate, kyu-dou, calligraphy etc, they all have it.
I want that peace.
By the way,
I remember when I was growing up, I used to go to classes in calligraphy for 6 years and it was a part of study subjects too (so I did about 12 years in total...), if my attention was everywhere I could not write/draw. I needed to centre myself and be calm to do it... I didn't know that time, I just realised recently. I had ADHD (still have, but those days, it was worse and there was no such diagnosis, of course), I found really hard to keep still and I just did not have enough attention span to do it, so, I did what I could manage. I still do, I just do what I can manage, not doing everything anymore. I'm still "human being", not "human-doing".
For me, that's why yoga helps. Qi gong helps.
After my class, I walk home and give myself smile meeting my ego on my mat.
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