happiness, yoga

Catching Reflections, Cultivating Love: I Am With You.

 

{Francesca Woodman | source}

{Francesca Woodman | source}

Today I went back to a Yoga class that I used to go to every week for about a year, but two slipped discs and a bout of vertigo and labyrinthitis brought the stint of Yoga to a halt.

I went back to the class last week but I didn’t really feel like I was completely there because I felt so out of practice. My mind felt elsewhere and my body felt as though it was learning a language again.

This week, though, I was back. At least more back than I was last week.

My mind still wandered and wondered what the fuck I was doing trying to do something I was struggling so hard with, something I knew so well just six months ago.

But as soon as I tucked myself into a twist or opened my spine in a forward bend, I knew I was home and I knew I was right where I needed to be.

Halfway through the class, I was doing a pose that required something to lean on.

My teacher suggested the mirror that had a little ledge on the bottom and I said, “Yes.”

 

As I said Yes, she said, “Oh, but you might not want to do that.”

 

I said, “No no no, I do.” And I felt a light flutter of excitement in my heart.

 

My teacher replied, “Oh, most people don’t want to practice looking at themselves!”

In that moment, I suddenly realized that I now enjoy looking at myself in the mirror. As I stood in front of myself, I felt a fondness and warmth that didn’t use to be there. I vividly remember going to a dance class a year ago and having to stand out of range of the mirror so I couldn’t see myself.

The need to do that was huge and desperate. Loathing and disgust, sorrow and unhappiness, and a desire to run, filled my system when I caught glimpses of myself.

It wasn’t until that moment of avoiding myself in the mirror did I realize a large part of me hated myself. It shone a light into the shame that swum through my system.

The shame for being me, the shame for being the daughter of my mother, the shame for not being skinny, the shame for feeling ugly, the shame for not welcoming me, the shame for not being as womanly as the voices in my head tell me I should be — even though I was my own kind of womanly, beautiful, wholesome, wholehearted, and complete.

And that loathing felt really fucking sad, but it also felt familiar. Oh-so-heartbreakingly-familiar. I was trying, desperately — and successfully — to form, cultivate, and discover self-love, but I was only at the beginning.

I didn’t know it could be any different from what it was then because I hadn’t met that level of self-love yet. I was on the foundation course.

I didn’t know it could be how it is now.

Now I feel like a pro. My love still falters and wavers and sometimes skips to the next shore — a shore seemingly miles away from the shore I’m currently residing at — but it always comes back. And it never skips away completely.

I know I’ve got miles to go and new self-love levels to meet — and I probably always will have — but looking where I’ve come from, I’ve swum miles already and ticked off levels I never knew I would.

Today, I wanted to see myself.

I lit up with love when I saw myself. I looked at myself and realized I’d come home, again.

I saw that, despite the whirling chatter of hatred and loathing, criticism and desired destruct, future-tripping and storytelling, rolling around my head, I was still me. I was — and am — still the beautiful, wholesome, me.

Looking at myself, I realized that no longer do I hate myself in the ways I used to. No longer do I strive to be something completely different.

I strive to be something, and sometimes I strive to be anything but me, but even in those moments of striving there’s a warmth, an affection, a compassion, a love, for what I am, who I am, the me that’s so very me, and so very here.

Today, as my teacher appeared surprised, and perhaps relieved, that I wanted to stand in front of the mirror, I told her why. I told her that I’ve been hanging out with myself in front of the mirror a lot, lately, so I’m well up for doing it now in the class. She laughed.

I said, “Seriously,” laughing too.

Because I do, and I have done, and I believe this to be the reason I can stand there holding fondness and familiarity with myself. I was keen to stand in front of the mirror because it was like practicing Yoga with an old friend — I was happy to see her, and she was happy to see me.

We stood together and practiced and felt a little shy that the whole world — the class — was witnessing our intimacy.

I stand, or kneel, or sit, or sometimes lie, in front of the mirror at home. Or I stand in front of bathroom mirrors anywhere I am, and need a moment with myself. I laugh, I cry, I have tear-storms. Tear-storms at home that last for hours.

I have conversations with my inner girl from my inner mother for moments I wish lasted forever, and sometimes the beauty of them blows me away. I wish I could pocket it, and in some ways they do because they’re there to access whenever I find myself in a reflection.

I sit there and hold myself, often literally.

I reach out and touch my hand on the mirror, on my reflection, and I tell myself, “You’re safe, you’re okay, I’m not leaving you, you’ve got this, I’m with you, I’m here.”

In those moments, nothing leaves me and everything stays. In those moments, tears fall and smiles beam, frowns fall and relief fills. I see everything I’d been wanting to see, and sometimes everything I don’t want to — but need to see in order to learn to love myself completely.

I hear everything I’d been needing to hear, and I often hear more. And it’s in those moments that I hear me.

I hear the deep and beautiful me bounding up from the sides of the turmoil that runs through me. I see and hear the beauty that resides within me, and I see and hear the grounded, unconditionally loving parent that lies within me. I see and hear my inner girl crying desperately or sharing her needs.

I hear my inner teen fuming or burning in agony. I hear my inner critic’s treadmill slow down to a juddering halt, or I hear him run off to find his mates. I hear my inner healer tell me that I’m safe.

I hear my heart say, “Yes.”

Because in those moments of intimacy, it’s like the world lies dormant around me as I find my sun.

It’s like nothing else matters as I come home.

“And there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

 

~ Mary Oliver

 

*****

#HoldYourself

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Amani Omejer

Amani Omejer

Amani lives in Bristol, UK. She can be found enjoying herbalism, swimming in rivers, surfing, laughing, and talking about life with friends or anyone who will listen. She is a firm believer in telling your story in order to heal. She is currently writing a book. Connect with her on Facebook or take a look at her website.
Amani Omejer
Amani Omejer