One of the things I see most often in the yoga classes I teach is the frustration that so many feel when it comes to balance, or to getting the new postures just right. There is a “perfection” mindset that a lot of people bring to their mats that can add a lot of resistance to their progress and their path.
What a lot of people do not realize it that all the falling, the being off-balance, and the struggle is where the real yoga lives. Once we own a posture the work to get there is done. It is in all the off-balance, catching ourselves states of being that the body, mind and the spirit are working in overtime. When you are off-balance the senses heighten, the core engages to stabilize you, the breath becomes engaged to add power, and spirit shines through when we get back up and keep trying.
Yoga is beautifully frustrating.
We live in a culture where we see beautiful people doing a lot of perfect asana (postures) on the cover of magazines and in videos. We often take these images to our classes and our mats. I feel that it is our job as instructors to help guide each student the beauty that is found in imperfection. Our bodies are beautiful when the move through the postures. Yoga is not about being perfect, yoga is about showing up. Yoga means “to yoke” or “to unite”. Showing up is always the hardest part, and anything beyond that is icing on the cake. Frustration is also not a bad thing. It keeps us moving through the postures, it keeps us evolving our craft, our practice. We learn to open up to the divine that rests in the process. When we show up to class we want to be sure that we are setting an intention. That we move through the postures and carry that intention into all our many parts. We want to embody the intention fully. Our bodies become conduits for energizing intention, our breath aligns and fuels will and desire. When we finish our practice we meditate and move intention into reality.
Falling down is an important part of the yoga process. What we do in class is an extension of what we do outside of class. A simple meditation that can be done in a yoga class is to sit with the action of falling or coming off-balance. Reflect on a time in your life where you may have fallen, or were shifted off-balance. Bring that image back to your practice and bring balance to that past event. If there is something in your current life that is causing you to be off-balance, bring it to the mat. The intention of bringing balance into that area of your life will live on once you leave class. Life is not something we leave with our shoes when we enter the yoga studio, nor is yoga something we leave on our mats when we go back out into our busy lives. Using your yoga to help generate energy for the other areas of your life help you to unite with all aspects of self.
When is a time where you felt off-balance? How did you react? What can you do right this moment to bring balance into your life?
Falling is a beautiful thing. Fall with grace and rise with power.
You are Loved. You are Beautiful. You are Divine.
Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT
Bhakti Witch 
Well said! Thank you.