Am I doing it right? Do I inspire others in the same way the babes inspired me? I should be more like “________”. My boobs suffocate me when I do plow pose and my belly gets in the way in forward bends. I can’t do advanced poses and I don’t know all the yoga things. I don’t own all the clothes because they don’t fit and I can’t afford them. I don’t like yoga a lot and I can’t just “turn it on”. I AM NOT ENOUGH. I AM NOT BEAUTIFUL. I AM NOT WORTHY.
No one created those rules but me. I didn’t sign anything saying I had to do them. I didn’t get a message from anyone telling me I had to BE anything. I made it all up. I had decided that I wasn’t allowed to be who I was because that wasn’t who NAF Babes were. That I couldn’t POSSIBLY be inspiring like they were. That I couldn’t POSSIBLY be what Alex wanted representing her brand.
I felt like I needed to be someone else to be an NAF Babe, when that just wasn’t the fucking point.
I’m not sure if Alex knew what she invited in when she reached out to me, but I am so glad she did. The things I have discovered inside mySelf have changed every aspect of my capacity for self Love. Which, by the way, I still struggle with on a daily basis. This is not a light switch that can be turned on or off. It is a fucking healing process full of trauma and really hard Work.
The funny thing is, most of these things have been discovered through practicing being aware of my own Self and learning to allow it. All of it. Through meditations and posts and shares with other babes, challenges + blog posts and so many beautiful conversations- I have started to understand what the word Allow really means.
The truth is, I am not broken. Or ugly. Or unworthy. Rather, I have lost mySelves in layers of other peoples expectations and ideas of who I should be. In an effort to please other people & make other people’s lives better, I have buried my own. Not even realizing it until I was so deep into that shadow that I didn’t even see a point in trying to get out. I wasn’t worth the Work.
I spend a lot of time comparing mySelf to other people. I spend a lot of time trying to be someone I find interesting and inspiring. I spend a lot of time judging mySelf so harshly that I wonder sometimes If I even have time to do anything else.
It took me a some time to accept that I am mentally ill. That though I have a great job, where I get to be a leader & a teacher & a coach, and I have a stable home and a very happy marriage, I am mentally ill. These things are real, and can change perceptions of our lives. I wrote about therapy once already, but it was one the most important pieces of my life.
I taught mySelf that who I was, just wasn’t ok. I had taken all my cues of what a successful life looks like from other people that I looked up to. Then I learned that people you look up to aren’t supposed to trigger feelings like this. I chose poorly, but instead of using that as yet another excuse to hate mySelf, I started looking elsewhere. Inside.
I have learned I have choices, and I DO NOT need to apologize for them. With that in mind, I continue to fine tune my surroundings- people, places and things, the more I am able to allow me to be exactly who I am, exactly when I am, exactly how I am. It’s a process. Sometimes it’s scary, ugly, angry and sometimes it is magical and peaceful and falls into place. Other times it feels more like a dumpster fire than a “journey”.
Because that is just the fucking point.
-Mik
Be sure to check out Mik’s Instagram page for more raw, you-are-enough inspo @effiesgarage
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