fitting well in your skin.
I love that line. a friend of mine introduced me to it. He came for a yoga session and told me post the class that he feels like he fits well in his skin and clarified that it was a dutch way of saying, he feels good, in a much deeper and wholesome way than : I feel good. Which is a beautiful state of mind and body to be in, but also a lovely thing to hear from your student as a teacher. I feel extremely happy when folks attend my sessions and come back to say that, there's a sense of omg, i did this for them - which is mostly an inflated ego speaking - but there is then a deeper sense of i "enabled" this for them - didn't do it - i helped create an opening or a space that they could move into and it was their choice, it was in their power to bring themselves there. They did it for themselves.
Anyway, coming back to the point - fitting well in your skin. I take that to mean a deep sense on contentment at your present state in life. These below points might pertain to me personally, my age, my financial status in life, but there's larger areas that all of us can answer with a yes and no or a maybe, so here goes :
do you sleep well at night ?
do you have people you can be yourself with, no explanations required?
do you have people you can be yourself with, no explanations required?
do you have moments where you stop and think - i'm alive and this is wonderful and magical?
are there people you care about deeply and do you have people who care about you deeply, how are they presently?
do you wake up everyday and head to a workplace or school grateful for it's existence?
do you come back home everyday with a sense of fulfillment, a day well spent?
do you open the door to your home and feel at peace and safe and held?
do you have the luxury to go away from a routine and yet come back to it without grudges?
do you think about the bounty nature lays on your table for every meal?
do have tiny moments of calm everyday - to just sit still and feel your heart beat and the hear the rush of your blood inside?
do you do things that challenge you?
do you do things that scare you?
do you make time to do things that make you insanely happy?
do you do it often?
do you have a dream to dream?
do you look up from a dinner table surrounded with your friends and family and send a silent prayer to the universe?
do you have time to watch the clouds go by, do you lay on your back in the grass and watch the stars?
do you laugh, so loud and so long that your insides hurt and you eyes tear up?
do your eyes tear up with sadness? do you let yourself feel that sadness in it's entirety?
do you observe your inhales and exhales? do you realise the life sustaining brilliance that breathing is?
do you take the time out to help those in need? those not as fortunate as you?
do you lie in your bed at night thankful for the day that went by or maybe thankful that its finally over and tomorrow is a new day?
do you smile at strangers?
do you sometimes just wander with no agenda - nowhere to be, nothing to do?
do you look back and find in your life thus far moments where you loved and lost?
if you have a healthy body, do you stop to thank it for all that it does for you?
if you are on the way to being healthy, do you stop and thank your body for having the courage to do so?
do you sit by yourself sometimes?
do you feel comfortable with who you are when you do that?
do you listen to music that makes you expand to something so large that it engulfs the space around you totally?
do you also listen to music, that brings all that is around you into your being, because you need that energy to feed you?
do you tell the people you love, that you love them?
do you do it often?
do you realise that everything is temporary - all of the above can be a yes answer and can turn to a no answer and then back to a yes answer?
do you realise that's the beauty about life?
do you embrace that uncertainty that the next moment can bring you joy, but can also bring you pain?
do you have it in you to welcome whatever it brings.
do you have it in you to let it go?
Those are my questions, in no way exhaustive, I might add in more to that list as i go on with life. But for now I asked myself those questions and it was a mixed bag and then thought about how i could make all of that a YES ! Only to realise that the point of fitting well in your skin is not to only have happy moments, but to be accept the moment that you are in for what it is. Nothing is perfect, no person, no place, no moment, no job, no relationship : but in any moment between encountering a situation and responding to it, do you pause and find space and try and make it mean something or maybe make it mean nothing at all? That's the beauty of being able to be expansive and also allowing yourself to contract - to let the breath fill you in with your inhales but also empty everything inside of you with an exhale. And in both those states, still fit well in your skin. To know that even in this temporary life, you can hold onto that unchanging core inside of you that keeps you rooted irrespective of which way the wind blows in this short journey we call life?
The asana I relate to when I think about fitting well in your skin is actually an amalgamation of asanas: the surya namaskars or even the shorter 'vinyasa' version of it. Right from tadasana (mountain pose) - which is all about being rooted and grounded and stationary to the flows thereafter. It speaks to me of a fluidity with which I would like to approach life, of moving with the breath, of expanding with my inhales and contracting with my exhales, of crawling sometimes as a cobra in bhujangasana (cobra) and then rising from the ashes into adho mukho svanasana (downward facing dog). And then repeating all of that until it is all effortless - or is the right balance between effort and ease - the constant ever present search for balance between abhyasa and vairagya.
I'm grateful that for now most answers to my list above are somewhat leaning towards a 'yes', but i'm even more grateful that there have been times when in the past it has been the exact opposite - and I know that in the future too it will change. For that knowledge and acceptance, I'm ever grateful.
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