Let go.
by
I was on Pinterest last night- I knowww, but it’s a guilty pleasure and I love it – and I found this really awesome quote that I wanted to share with y’all.
Let go or you’ll be dragged. – Zen proverb
This quote was accompanied with a goofy picture of a man hanging from a hot air balloon which I shan’t be including here because it’s dumb-looking. Oh, Pinterest. Haven of good quotes stuck onto terrible Instagram photos.
But I digress.
I find both this quote and this concept really powerful for two distinctly different reasons. Firstly, the consequences of hanging on to the past. In yoga, we talk about this a lot. Letting things go. Living in the moment. Realizing that time only exists as a current moment that is linked to a series of current moments. It’s a little abstract sometimes, but nonetheless important. I love this concept so much that I got the phrase here now tattooed on my ribcage, as a reminder to myself to let things go.
The second reason I love this quote is that we forget that the future can be just a dangerous to cling to as the past. However, we can be pulled and dragged in many different directions, and if you aren’t ready for it, being dragged forward can be just as caustic as being dragged back.
In yoga, we often seek positive changes in our lives. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that, but it’s often easy to focus so much on positive change that we forget what is good about ourselves as we are. In light of that realization, I asked my yoga students in class on Sunday to go home and write a list of five things they really like about themselves, just so they realized that change doesn’t mean throwing yourself out and starting over. Here’s my list:
1. I’m self-confident.
2. I’m gregarious.
3. I’m strong.
4. I operate well under pressure.
5. I push people to be the best version of themselves.
Now, I know this list will shift and change and develop over time, because life isn’t stagnant. However, now I’ve got a baseline to return to. Instead of saying, I need to change everything, I can say, I feel like I’d be happier with myself if I changed some things, but I like a lot of things about myself as I am right now, too.
That’s my two cents, anyways.
What’s your list, blackbirds?
Originally posted on hernamewascassandra