Let Your Inner Superhero Soar

Dear Sass,

A few days ago, fall came. I had just managed to put my whole body into the ocean and suddenly summer was gone. So here I am bundled in layers of wool, feeling the unmistakable energy of fall. This is a time when my inner superhero awakens to address every undone thing in my life- and the other parts of me try to keep up. Or, as has been the case lately, the other parts of me try to convince me that I can't do all of the things that the inner superhero says I can. Resistance can be powerful. One of my fall resolutions is to enroll in a yoga teacher-training for which I have to prepare. A lot. I can't believe how angry I feel about this,  how something at the core of my being seems to rage at the commitment I've made to do something that I really want to do. What's up with this?

Sincerely, 

Sass 

Dear Sass,

It's my experience that people function like emotional camels, holding onto everything and building invisible humps to store it in. Unfortunately, the everything we hold onto includes a lot of uncomfortable feelings, like grief and anger and shame. We're good at carrying this extra weight. Most of us balance it so well, we forget it's there and we don't notice the ways in which it hampers our movements. But when we start to change the balance of our lives- by doing new things, thinking new thoughts, using our bodies in new ways- suddenly the weight is all there and feels like it might squash us. I think that is what resistance is- it's all the invisible old shit we've been carrying around made visible. It can be painful to see these unresolved feelings, and it's tempting to restore whatever it was in our lives that allowed us not to see them in the first place. But ultimately, I think our inner superheros are right; we can be yoga teachers and published writers and doctors and parents and wilderness survivalists. I don't know how to get from here to there without simply going, no matter what form our resistance takes. Along the way we have friends and therapists and books and nature and all of the things that sustain us. 

All Best,

Sass