Letting go to find faith in myself

We had a session today at VoiceHER. Free yourself from shame.
One of the questions asked was how have you started or how are you working to let go of the shame you carry?
It took me some time to get to the answer of that question and then suddenly it became clear to me.
Yoga. My devotional practise that goes beyond the asanas is what have allowed me to release the shame.

I begun doing yoga about a decade ago, I wanted to be fit and look just as slim as all those other women I saw doing yoga #goals. I did it back and forth but never really got a practise that I stuck with. My body didn’t become what I thought it would, it could never bend or flex like it was supposed to.

4 years ago my life as I knew it ended. I went through a heart breaking event and I was so lost. I did not know where to turn or how to get that voice in my head to stop beating myself down. I saw this add for a trial period at a studio close to where our office is, for Bikram Yoga*
A very strict and repetitive practise, in a room heated up and filled with people who sweated it out inches from one another.
I found peace in there.
My mind, even if just for seconds at a time quieted down. And with patient and practice I slowly found a new version of myself or rather uncovered a new version of myself. One that was less heartbroken and a little wiser.
Going to the studio, knowing exactly what to expect for 90 minutes was heaven. Nothing could surprise me, nothing besides myself. It was only me on that mat each time and once I could let the brain rest I learned how to listen to my body again, to my heart.

I started too long for surprises again, the repetitive patterns of that particular practise was starting to itch and I needed something else. I found another studio who did another form of yoga. And I fell in love.
I fell in love with the me I started to uncover there and so I decided to do a teacher training. And the me who walked in that first weekend was not the person who left the last weekend.
You know when you look back at your life to find those defining moments, deciding to take a yoga teacher training was definitely one of those for me.

Anyways, back to the conversation about shame. In the last training I did we talked about the body, seven days we went into the body. And that is something I have felt shame for. My body has been something shameful for me for as long as I can remember, and during one of the movement classes it came to me.
Let it go. All the untruths and truths I have ever believed about myself and do believe today, let them go.
My body is not working against me, it works non stop around the clock to keep me alive. It is doing it’s best all day long and I have been working against it for years.
So I let it go.
Let go of the shame and the thoughts and the feelings around it. I am letting it go because my faith in myself is worthy of that.

Letting go instead of holding on.
I’ve held on for dear life to the patterns and beliefs because with them I knew what to expect and if I failed, well at least I had met my own expectations.
Holding on is safe and collecting more things to hold on to is what makes this world go around. Us needing more, us wanting more. Getting ourselves further away from the act of letting go.

Letting go is how I restored my faith in myself.

*( I wasn’t aware then of what kind of a person he was, once I found out I quit my membership. Also allowing myself to feel grateful for the practise that helped me and still acknowledge the tremendous pain he has caused)