Wanted: Positive motivation

Picture from Google

While doing yoga yesterday, I wondered what I was feeling right then and there. What was motivating me?

The answer: fear. *Dang it!*

Fear is my strongest motivator. Fear of regret. Fear of what could happen if missing this session led to a snowball-effect of more missed sessions. Fear of how my ageing body would handle the ageing process if I didn't practice (I found out two years ago that I have a hole in the cartilage of one knee, and I suspect the other knee is not any better.). And when Fear comes around, it brings along its siamese twin Worry. Next to my Should-dos, Fear/Worry are the most present actors in my mind.

Should I ignore my fear? Does this mean I yoga for the wrong reason if I succumb to it? I may be wrong, but fear sometimes get a bad rap because it's not like it doesn't serve a purpose. Seriously, if I could lie on the couch and eat Ben & Jerry's all day without gaining an ounce, chances are my yoga mat would end up on e-bay faster than you could say "Half-Baked". What Fear/Worry do is remind me that the consequences of MY choices are MY doing. And my fear of regretting a missed mat session because I don't feel like it arises because experience has taught me that I will feel better 99.99999% of the time if I just do it. That's not so much worry as it is intuition or just plain lessons learned from the school of been-there-done-that!

Regardless if it's true fear, intuition, or empiric knowledge, I've still given these emotions too much power. Yes, they get me to do arm-balances and backbends that aren't always the most comfortable, but they cheer me on in the wrong way. They taunt me with daydreams about a future I know nothing about and lure me into the trap of rehearsing unhappiness (something I brought up in an earlier post). And that energy, that on the surface may seem to be moving me forward, in fact, is keeping me from being present.

Because when I in the middle of my session yesterday finally took a moment to notice myself and my surroundings: rays of sunlight peeking through blinds, the smell of the wooden floor, the beautiful Lotus flower mural before me, my heart open and lifted in extended mountain pose, I realized that THIS is where I should be.

In the words of Baron Baptiste, "If you aren't NOW HERE, you are NOWHERE!"