No battle.

“Most people go through the day, attending their responsibilities with the outward pressure of all the to-do’s but also the inward pressure of what they feel they must prove to themselves and to the world. Therefore their tasks deplete them doubly.”

The words reverberated through the room and I felt my chest tighten instantly. I listened as renowned teacher Joseph Le Page (founder and director of Integrative Yoga Therapy) spoke to some twenty something students in a large upper room with windows overlooking the stunning yet humble grounds of Ancient Yoga Center in Austin, Texas. The reasons and that had brought me to sit among this group were multifaceted.

I don’t even know whose standards these are much less how I came to adopt them. All I know is I will never get it right.

I have heard empowerment translated as “nothing to prove and nothing to hide”.

If the description included “nothing to fear” then it would not require great courage to live an empowered life. But in fact it necessitates immense daily courage. It is at times very risky, at moments uncomfortable and usually not convenient. The world says, “fall in” and you wake up all throughout the day to say “I choose differently.” But what it offers in return is a chance to see yourself for who you truly are and what you are capable of. It grants us moments of humility and awe when we sense we are doing exactly what we are meant to be doing. Maybe it never gets easier but most of us can get better at it with time and practice…maybe a little like parenting.

So I get used to asking, In what area of my life today, right now, am I trying to prove I am enough?

What would it be like to know at this very moment: I am enough, I do enough, I have enough?

Nothing drains the spirit, creativity, life-force energy (prana) more quickly than the battle I create within. The battle I wake up to fight every day? It doesn’t exist. There is no battle.

No one is calling me to arms but myself. I am (you are) the dictator and also the ambassador of peace. What would life be like without the war you’ve waged every day for years? Do you know who we are without our armor, without our weapons?

Lost, undefined, afraid?

The perfect place to begin.

 

 

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