learning to observe rather than judge

Yesterday marked day 7 of my 60 day challenge. I went to a 90 minute Vinyasa class and Jennifer was instructing. This was my first 90 minute class for the week - the rest of the classes have been 60 minutes.

We worked hard for the full time, but we also did a few minutes of meditating at the beginning and end of class. Jennifer talked about our ability, or rather inability, to sit still. Often times when we try to sit still we end up fidgeting, adjusting our clothes, adjusting our hair, redistributing our body to get more comfortable, etc. It's really hard to not move!

She challenged us to not judge ourselves for not sitting still, but to just observe our thought patterns and our behaviors. This was also hard! I immediately started critiquing myself - I'm not sitting straight enough, I'm not breathing deep enough, I'm thinking too much, etc.

The thing that stood out the most was not the thoughts themselves, but the negative association I had with them: I'm doing bad, I'm not doing it right, I'm not doing it as good as that person, etc. I was being really hard on myself and all we were doing was sitting! Once I realized that, I almost laughed at how ridiculous my thoughts were. It gave me a new perspective into acceptance of myself and experiencing a present moment. I can observe things as just the way they are - I don't need to analyze everything as good/bad/right/wrong every second of the day.

This morning in class Mandy was teaching and she read a quote from a book that went something like...'to forgive is to set a prisoner free and then to discover that the prisoner was yourself.' It resonated with me in sort of a loose interpretation by applying it to myself instead of others, but it seemed to fit with what I was thinking yesterday. Letting go of my self-judgment (or forgiving myself) is incredibly liberating (setting the prisoner/myself free).

After class I applied that to my headstand practice. Each attempt I made, I tried to just observe what happened rather than judge whether I was doing good/bad/right/wrong. If I fell down, it wasn't 'bad,' it just is what it is: a fall. It was really interesting - I actually felt more confident and in turn felt stronger and more balanced. I was able to lift one leg up into the air! I did it a couple times with each leg against the wall, and then I even did it away from the wall. I was amazed that a simple change in my thoughts had such a big impact on my results. Looking forward to learning more!