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I went to hot yoga for the first time today. I hadn’t met the teacher before and when I rocked up at the studio reception I could see in her face that she thought I was going to die in there. She took one look at my fat, 40-something Lycra clad ass and thought ‘she has noooo idea what she’s getting herself into’. Which was simultaneously insulting, given that I’ve been practising strenuous vinyasa flow yoga for two years now pretty much every week without fail, and also terrifying because it made me doubt myself.
Well I shouldn’t have. At the start of the class she said ‘your only goal is to stay in the class for 90 minutes. Some of you will want to leave, just try not to’. She was looking right at me as she said that and I smiled sweetly back at her. Because in that moment I knew I’d be fine. Because I can do hard things. I can sit in discomfort. And I was right. I didn’t want to leave. At various points of the 90 minute class I wanted to cry, scream, be sick and punch the instructor in the face. But I did not want to leave. And not only that, I was one of only a handful of people who didn’t sit down to take extra rest at any point. Which, I think, is because being uncomfortable no longer makes me immediately want to relieve that discomfort. Because I know that’s where the goodies are. So I do hard things, so I can get to them.
Another thing I’ve been musing about lately, which again is something I’ve taken from my yoga practice, is failure. Specifically that it’s just not a concept that’s relevant to any long term process of growth. Which includes yoga. Which includes sobriety. I went to a workshop with a fantastic teacher recently and he said something that really struck a chord with me when we were doing balances. Which I am seriously crap at compared to the rest of my own practice and every other living soul I have ever shared a class with. Presumably because zero core strength because two enormous babies who spent 9 months stretching my abs beyond all recognition and were then removed from my uterus by said uterus being ripped open and stuck back together. Plus a mind that is, shall we say, still somewhat unsteady despite my best efforts. What he said was this: ‘you cannot fail’. Which makes sense completely in relation to yoga. It’s an ongoing lifelong practice, there’s no point where you have ‘done it’ or achieved a perfect practice. So if there is no success then there is no failure. And by having permission to wobble in my standing balances, I suddenly found that I wobble much less. The pressure’s off, I suppose. And the same applies to stopping drinking and figuring out how to have a fulfilling life alcohol free. It’s an ongoing process of growth so you cannot possibly fail or do it wrong.
So take heart lovely ones because both these things are 100% true about each and every one of you. You can do very hard things. I know this because you’re here. You were brave enough to face up to the possibility that alcohol might have become a problem in your life, which is enormously brave on its own, whatever happens after that. And each step that does happen after that is hard too. Amazing, rewarding, exhilarating, beautiful. But hard. Yet we have done these things. We have done hard things again and again. Even when not drinking becomes effortless (which it does) we still have to do hard things. We have to face pain, grief and loss with no anaesthetic. We have to grow and stretch, which hurts. We have to set ourselves apart from much of the world. But all that’s ok, more than ok, because the more we do hard things the better we get at it, and the more we realise that hard things are an absolutely essential part of our best lives. So not only can we do hard things but we get to a point where we want to do hard things, because on the other side of them the absolute best things in life are hiding.
And we cannot fail. It doesn’t matter if we wobble. Wobbling, in whatever form that takes, doesn’t mean we failed because we cannot fail in a process of growth. Sometimes we will feel like we’re growing at a super-charged, slightly alarming rate. Sometimes we will feel like we’ve slowed to a snail’s pace or even going backwards. It doesn’t matter, none of it does, it’s all part of the journey. And it’s a journey which has no defined end and which is entirely personal to each and every one of us. So whose to say what’s wrong or right.
Just trust your path. And keep going.
