Acceptance

Today was 5:30 with Oksana. I hung out with regulars Reggi, Andy and Ray before class and it felt like old times. Once we got into class, I knelt down on my mat and gazed at myself in the mirror for a minute, trying to get oriented and ready. Acceptance. The word floated up and off my mat like soft sinewy smoke. I stood up for pranayama breathing and the thought "acceptance" was still there, with a question mark next to it. What? I kept breathing. Change. Things have changed drastically for me these last two years, in all categories except work. Internally I've dealt with all of it, the good and the bad by leaning on this yoga. I looked in the mirror at my own two eyes. Why am I thinking about acceptance today? More change is coming for me. I'm ok with that. Am embracing it in fact. Change is opportunity.

The practice drifted by like a beautiful dream. Oksana led the class with a perfect tempo, her sweet accent, encouraging words to newer students and a perfect temperature. I was left alone to marinate with my thoughts in the heat. I kept telling myself "ssshhh", be quiet, just practice, but the thought of acceptance and what is it really kept popping up in my head. It's such a simple concept really. You cannot love and accept others until you learn to accept yourself. I mean easy, right? Then in 2 minute savasana it hit me. Sometimes I think acceptance means liking something. So if you don't like it, run out and change it right? So how can we ever truly accept ourselves when we are such flawed creatures and there's much to not like and much to want to run out and change. We open the book of our lives and flip back to past chapters, seeing our mistakes highlighted with a nice yellow marker. I screwed up there, oh, and now I see my part in that fiasco, and yes, it wasn't all that persons fault. Here's my part in it. Here's my part in everything. Oh. I lay there, pondering. Acceptance. Maybe it's not necessarily liking or having everything "fixed". Maybe it's as simple as seeing and being present with it...with yourself. Suddenly we were at final breathing and the road of my future lay ahead of me, no longer mapped out the same as it used to be. Instead I saw today, paved with gold, alight with potential. I sucked in a deep breath of air before final breathing and breathed out acceptance.