Letting Go

A few weekends ago, I went to a yoga retreat. I signed up to go with my most favourite teacher in the whole world, who is a super physical, vanyasa flow type teacher. I was super stoked to get buff and strong all weekend….but ended up getting something I hadn’t really signed up for.

The other teacher facilitating the retreat was of the softer, more spiritual side of yoga…and man, were her and my teacher a great combo. But at first, I was pretty skeptical of the whole experience. I am a pretty logical, analytical, factual and grounded person. My first “sharing circle” (note: I had never been a part of one of these before) was about talking about your inner flower, and if it is open or not. My inner flower? Seriously? Once I got past that part, I imagined that it was big and wide and open….so I really had a hard time when one of the ladies in the circle admitted that her flower was closed, and she started crying about it. I kept thinking to myself – is this really happening to me? Am I really sitting here talking and crying about inner flowers?

But when the other teacher taught her first class, I found it HARD. I was wrestling some pretty intense internal demons as I was going through the flow and evidently they were putting up quite a fight. I left that first day feeling exhausted.

Fortunately, the last day was all about “processing” and it really all came together. They made us work through some pretty powerful exercises – sitting back-to-back with a virtual stranger and just talking…staring that stranger in the eyes….lots of those types of exercises. And the eerie part? It kind of worked. I had let go. I had let go of my expectations…my preconceived notions of the weekend and of yoga…I had let go of my barriers, my inhibitions and everything else that holds me together as a pretty “together” person.

And you know what? It felt good.

It’s probably not a coincidence that I came away, having made a pretty important life decision (one of those “fork in the road” types) and feeling pretty peaceful.

The best part though, was when I asked Scott a few days after coming home if I seemed different. And he said “yeah, you do.” And I said “how?” and he said “its like you know yourself better. And I like you.”

So somewhere during that weekend I had let go of a not-so-positive part of me and came away being more whole. And I think that’s pretty powerful. So I challenge the rest of you out there: to let go. Of something…big or small – just take a big breath and blow it away.

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