This Woman's Worth at YogaSource: Los Gatos, CA: May 24, 2018

This quote was posted in the women's changing room at the studio. The yoga room has full length mirrors so one can't help but look at themselves in their hugging yoga attire and I have to say it was a practice to focus on my worth and not my road weary body.

Rolling into YogaSource for a 9AM class when I went to bed at 2AM and have three days of road grime on me is a sheer testament of my love for yoga. Additionally, its a heated power yoga class, and I'm quite sure the creme I used in my coffee this morning was stale. I felt queasy during a pre-stretch and vowed not to fall prey to overdoing if the class was too hard. Mental gymnastics aside, as I looked up from a deep lunge and into my own eyes laden with even blacker circles than usual I heard my self say, "you look like Hell".

Unkept nails, stringy hair with 2 inches of black roots, wrinkly upper arms didn't shock me when I saw it though, maybe because I"m kinda used to her. But there was ample time to start tearing myself to shreds because the inescapable full length mirrors do that to me. Within the first few poses it was game on with criticizing my poses, my uneven hips, my left fingers that don't open wide enough. As if  touring isn't exhausting enough, self  hate takes the cake and is such a waste of energy.

I found it curious that this studio with her full length mirrors and luxurious retail area posted such a lovely quote that empathized worth. When I shifted from caring about my beauty to caring about my worth it just made me feel worse, because I felt, compared to everyone else in the room, my pocketbook was inferior. I mean, here we are in Los Gatos where people are making mounds of money. I know net worth wasn't the worth the inspirational quote was talking about, but its where my mind went, maybe because I've been thinking a lot lately about money. Specifically,  about how to earn a lot more of it. Its new territory for me to even mention money. Where I grew up such talk was considered the height of bad taste which was very confusing because it was what most people, it seemed, cared about the most. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out what I've got issues with self worth and money and I'm starting to think these psychic knots are lodged in my right shoulder, which slumps slightly forward in a permanent posture of shame.

One translation of the word abhyasa is 'practice', and the yoga sutras (YS 1.14) further comment saying 'When that practice is done for a long time, without a break, and with sincere devotion, then the practice becomes a firmly rooted, stable and solid foundation. I could chalk it up to being tired, too exhausted to care about money or looks, but I rather think that some of my long term work on self worth is helping. That old flavor of self loathing is tasting like stale applesauce and I just didn't cling to any that mental chatter today.

After class I went to the main (i.e. shopping) street of Los Gatos. The second round of miracle happened because I didn't buy one little thing. Not cute shoes, not a cashmere sweater, no face cream, not a thing. I felt full and happy.

I felt worthy of just being me.

These moments don't happen very often, so I thought I'd write about it to help etch it into my brain.

Health, Love, and Rock N Roll

Yes by William Stafford.