If it is available to you

At this shala, the heat meets you halfway up the stairs as you lug your heavy but really good mat up to practice. Slight fluttering of the "new girl at school" feeling creeps in. Walk in deposit belongings, move into the room and find your spot amongst the breathing, the movement, the work of each person stretching and delving deep into their own individual relationship to the work.

Today I grappled with the stop. I grappled with the embarrassment of not being able to do something well the first time. The bulletproof side of me that likes to show my best face was spitting mad. The mind of self doubt that ridicules me for not having practiced in the past eight years tried to sit on the mat with me far too many times. I would get a pose (elation!) then fall out of it (disappointment.). What came easy to me was delicious, what came hard was bitter. 

There is a phrase that you hear in yoga, "If it is available to you", that describes going deeper into a pose based on your body's readiness for the movement. It's a phrase that rings true for me in the journey of my personal life as well. It reminds me that I may not be ready for everything at once, that it's the testing of what is available that is important. That trying is the key, that accepting that it's not time is the reality.

I think about this "if" and I couple it with the "when". "If it's available to you" tells me to be kind to myself in the present moment, not to be frustrated and to turn away from things that are hard to move through. There is the now and there is the future, the "when it's available to you" that will come with sticking to it, be it the practice or the work of becoming that will pay off. It will be available to you at the right time.

Pushing through the awkwardness and disappointment and self-talk and sticking to it is how you get there. Not running away from it because it's not easy. Believing that it will be available to you is the key. And when you get there it will not be perfect, you may have moments of getting it and moments of falling out of it. Even in this new space, there will be more to accept in the "if" and a new set of challenges that will place you back in the future of the "when".

We are not static beings. Life is not linear. Our humanness is our becoming.