What Have You Been Learning Lately?

These photos were taken on the same day three years apart. One might expect that "progress" would look like a foot on the head in an even deeper backbend. Alas! In the interim, I've become the inhabitant of a whole new body. An as-yet-unhealed injury to my right shoulder makes Urdhva Dhanurasana extremely painful to come  into and limits my mobility in the pose significantly. Yes, this is still a deep full wheel, but I can no longer pull my chest forward with perfectly straight arms. I can no longer do the full expression of the pose and as a result, I totally suck. I'm a terrible yogi and an even worse person. Sorry. Jk! In the age of social media overshare, it's easy to compare ourselves to others in many different contexts and feel less than. The full reality behind the perfect photo is rarely divulged. When those "30 day challenges" started rolling out on Instagram, I did ALL of them. I would spend part of every day forcing my unwarm body into p

When I was young and I would tell my father "I love you," he would reply "Thank you." As human communication continued to devolve, if I wrote it in a text, his reply was the smiling emoji wearing sunglasses. Seriously. My father would be quick to point out all the terrible things he *didn't* do, as if one should be rewarded for not doing things that you shouldn't be doing anyway. No, sir, you do not get a medal for *not* beating your wife and children. Physical assault is illegal. Your prize for avoiding it is not going to jail. Nice try, though. 349 days ago it became abundantly clear to me what an unsafe man my father is to have in my life and I cut him off. No longer would he be allowed to mishandle my tenderness, tearing my wounding open again and again. This is the beauty of adulthood. We get to thoughtfully filter who and what we let in. We get to erect firm boundaries for self love and preservation. It is our most powerful responsibility to ours