Don’t recoil

A small mantra for today.

About halfway through today’s yoga session, I felt my mind go quiet. I was in a seated forward fold, and the tightness as I eased into the position was enough to cause me to recoil a bit, before taking a deep breath and relaxing back into it.

Once I was deep in the stretch, letting myself experience the slight discomfort with no judgement of it being a good or bad thing, words popped into my head out of nowhere: don’t recoil. Just experience it. 

So today, that’s my mantra. If it’s uncomfortable, but it’s good for you: don’t recoil, let it happen. If it looks strange or grotesque: don’t recoil, just gently look away. When faced with a scary or arduous task: don’t recoil, just get started if you can.