Dismantling the Box

Usually people have a niche when they start a blog. No matter how much I search I feel like I don’t really have one. I suppose my niche is that I do not know how to do master much of anything right now. It is pretty common that I don’t stick with anything long enough to really see results. I could just be lazy but I have a feeling that it has something to do with be afraid to fail. I of course think there is a deeper meaning to most things, my lack of discipline is one of those things. Not to mention I always fall apart if something messes up my routine. There was a time in my life when I actively rejected discipline. Even disciplining myself to a strict yoga practice brought out something in me. I recall once my yoga teacher having a speaker come talk to us, and I decided to go. It is rare that I attend these types of things but I thought what the hell, maybe I will make some new friends, since this was months maybe even a year after losing all of mine. While I still adore my teacher, the only words I can use to describe this discussion was…complete bull shit.

Now keep in mind this was all because of my life experience. My entire life I had not only been put into a box, but I continuous put myself in this box and kept myself there for all of my life. So when I say this experience was bull shit, I am not saying the people or the topic was bull shit but instead the whole experience. I left there realizing that while I may have gotten out of the box I was in prior to my yoga practice, I was not slowly building another box around me. The ashtanga yoga box, and I knew I needed to quickly dismantle it. I am pretty sure I left that discussion and got myself a drink at a restaurant bar or something. I started contemplating all of the different boxes we put ourselves in and what it meant to not be in a box at all. Was that even possible? The question still stands, is it even possible? That might have been when I started rejecting my practice. I am pretty angry cause I was strong AF and didn’t even realize how in shape I was lol. I love and still love Ashtanga, but I knew I did not want to be put in that yoga box where I felt obligated to drink chai lattes and vegan meals. That is where I was headed though. Not the chai lattes, but I did make a few vegan meals. They were overprices with so many ingredients and it didn’t even taste good. I didn’t want to be a vegan and yet here was trying to force myself to be because I knew a lot of “yoga people” were.

I started to do what I thought I should do instead of listening to what my body needed, which is sort of the whole point of yoga anyways, or at least one of the points. Now that I am writing about it that is probably when I started resenting the practice and in fact the whole community if I am being honest. It all seemed so fake. That is because maybe I felt a little fake. The truth was and still is that I am an ashtangi that loves burgers and white wine and I know that some narcissistic douche would say that I just haven’t evolved past that but who is anyone to judge me, and what part of me felt forced to change. I suppose I fell for the guise that I needed to to change certain things to go deeper into my practice, in a lot of ways that is true and I can’t deny that, but I feel like I should have let it happen organically. I should have made changes because I wanted to. I most certainly should not have considered being vegan is I absolutely didn’t want to. Also, the Bhagavad Gita, while I am sure very beautiful is confusing AF to me, not to mention I do not believe in gurus. Let us not all turn a blind eye to the fact that sexual abuse among the “yoga elites” is a real thing. When we are worshipping someone to the degree that they are a guru, it is only a matter of time that we will be shattered when the illusion of the guru is shattered. I want to be able to share my experiences with others especially if they improve my life, but I never would want to call myself an influencer, spiritual master, etc.

We are born alone, and we die alone, and I believe that I reject being a part of any group. I want to be me and that means not being swayed one way or the other by how someone behaves or what their opinions may be. That is why for me establishing boundaries has proven to be both difficult but also necessary. I suppose that is why compromise is so hard for me as well, but if I am going to be in a relationship, and now I have a child on the way, I have to make room for some compromise, but I have to learn to not lose myself in the process. I need to be true to myself while I am also being a good mother, and partner.

I long for my Ashtanga Practice, writing about it now makes me miss it even more. In fact I was not even planning on writing about this. It all just came out, but I am grateful that it did. For me my journey is that I need to not label myself. My thoughts, opinions, and actions are just that, mine! As long as I am not causing harm to anyone else I feel that that is all that matters. So if want to do my yoga practice, and then eat a burger after, I should be able to do that without judgement from anyone else. Whose to say “you are doing it wrong.” Are any of us truly experts at anything? Are a lot of us getting lost on this so called path to enlightenment? What is enlightenment anyways and why are we so desperate to reach it? If we are always chasing after something then we aren’t really living.

Sending you all my love,

Brittany