You know about “shoulding” on yourself, right? When that nasty inner critic pipes up and says you should be further along than you are professionally or you should be married by now or you should make better choices with romantic partners or you should lose that ten pounds or you should be able to do it all and still look like a million bucks or you should be able to work and be an amazing parent, partner, friend, or you should not have said that stupid thing or lost your patience or made that horrible decision, and if anyone knew they’d also know how unworthy you are of love, friendship, anyone’s high esteem or affection.
That’s the problem with shame. It’s a liar, because the truth is we all have things we wish we could go back and do differently, we all have things we don’t share, even with our closest people, we all struggle with feeling like it’s just us. Shame makes you feel like a fraud, like you’re bad and not worthy, and because of that you have to push down your worst choices and biggest mistakes. Shame separates us from each other.
No one gets through life without making mistakes, no one feels good about every choice s/he has made. It’s okay, it’s called being human. Stop shoulding yourself and start working on forgiving yourself so you can offer up that particular spark of yours to the world. Life is too short for anything else.
If the world isn’t being gentle with you, I hope you’re being gentle with yourself. ✨
Sending you love,
Ally Hamilton
Loved this one. Love you Ally!
Yay! And I love you, too!!
Love this post. Just what I needed to read. I also am really enjoying the yoga site which i joined a week ago. I live in London and when our lockdown began one of your competitors came on my radar. They offered free streamed classes for a couple of weeks and then suddenly started charging $20/day! Needless to say, I went looking for some other options. You were one of the sites that was written up in an article. I had planned to try out several free trials before deciding which one to stay with, but I liked the classes and the way they’re organised and presented so much I decided to stop looking. Then I read your bio and this blog post and was even more certain I had found a good yoga home. Thanks so much. Shirley
Hi Shirley!! I’m really happy you found us, and even happier you’re feeling at home!! I seriously love that we have yogis practicing all over the globe, together. It makes my day, every day! And I’m also happy this post was meaningful to you. Welcome to the community!! I don’t know if you’re a Facebook person, but I have a page there called the Yogis Anonymous Practice Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/YAPracticePage/ where I do live meditations every week and daily gratitude prompts and say hi and we all talk about life and yoga (and it’s free, no hidden charges lol) In any case, I’m sending you lots of love from Santa Monica and hoping you and yours stay safe and healthy 🙂 xo