How To Meet Yourself Where You Are When You're Stressed

What does it mean to meet yourself where you are? In a word: Acceptance.

On the mat

On the yoga mat, meeting yourself where you are means dealing with the body and mind that you have right now. Maybe you slept great, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you are over-caffeinated, maybe you are dragging. You might be managing an injury, or arthritis, or a joint replacement. Practice yoga with the body you have today, and let go of self-judgment or wishing you had some other body. Accept the canvas and paints you have to work with today, and do the best you can with those tools.

The beauty of yoga is in the modifications. All poses, no matter what they are, can be made different through the use of props, or by changing them in some way. Maybe you make the pose more challenging by changing the arm or leg position, or by shifting your gaze somewhere else. You might make a pose more supportive by putting a knee or two on the floor, or by putting a block under your hand, hips or thigh. All yoga poses are adaptable to all bodies, even if you are sitting in a chair.

Accepting your body as it is gives you permission to make modifications that serve you best. Beginner yogis often believe that using props is a crutch and that they will be seen as beginners. If you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism like I have, not knowing something can be a difficult obstacle to tackle. But seasoned practitioners know the value of props and how they can enhance any yoga practice. When you feel more at ease in your body, your practice becomes far more enjoyable, comfortable, and useful.

Adaptability is a powerful tool to take with you off the mat and into your life.

This video is a short tutorial on props and how to use them in your yoga practice.

Off the mat

Sometimes everything goes your way and life is fabulous, and other times you feel like you are playing Dodgeball, trying to avoid one thing flying at your head after another. Things can be pretty unpredictable, thus fueling lots of stress and anxiety.

How do you cope? Accept life as it is, control what you can control, and modify when necessary.

Accepting things as they are doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything about them. If someone is treating you badly, you don’t have to tolerate it; you can speak up for yourself or walk away. Or both. But the stress from the interaction is within your control to take in or not take in.

You could wish that the interaction went in a different direction, but that leaves the person spinning in your head for the next few hours, days, weeks, months. Have you ever replayed an interaction over and over, playing it out in different ways than it actually happened? That will add to your feelings of stress.

Accepting that the person treated you badly, and that what happened actually happened in the way that it did, takes some of the sting out of it. Allowing the past to be as it was allows you to release it from taking up energy and space in your mind. You can control what happens next.

Stress happens.

I love the Michael Singer quote, “Stress is what happens when you resist life’s events.” Learning to accept things as they are, and meet yourself where you are, is how to release stress from your life. “Go with the flow” is only part of it, it’s the acceptance piece. Accept things as they are, and then choose what happens next.

Aging is a similar process: you can fight it, kicking and screaming, or you can accept that your body and mind will change with age. You can dye your hair, or accept that greying happens. You can get frustrated that your knees don’t work like they used to, or you can accept that they might need more recovery time, or more maintenance work.

Meeting yourself where you are and accepting what is brings more peace to your nervous system. Letting go of resistance is the key to practicing yoga, both on and off the mat.

Practice

Let’s use the example of Tree pose. Tree pose is a one-legged balance pose where you place one foot against the other inner leg. Balancing on one leg can be challenging, but acceptance and modification can help. Once balance feels comfortable, you can also make the pose more challenging by playing with variations.

Tree pose/ Vrksasana

Standing on one leg also gives you the opportunity to practice falling. Notice the thoughts in your mind when you lose your balance. Do you criticize yourself or speak meanly to yourself when you fall? Can you be kind and gentle toward yourself instead?How would it feel to accept the fact that you lost your balance? What happens if you just let it go and try again? Notice how that feels in your body.

You are not a better or worse yoga practitioner if you fall or don’t fall. I’ve been practicing yoga for almost 30 years, and some days I lose my balance too. It’s all part of the practice: learning to accept what is and keep going, or learning to rest and restart when you are ready.

Tree pose with more support

Feel your foot against the floor and try to spread your toes apart to create a wider, more stable base. For more support, you could hold onto a wall, chair, or nearby piece of furniture to steady your balance on one leg. You can also place your opposite toes on the floor until you are ready to lift them off completely.

Tree pose with toes on the floor

Tree pose with more challenge

Once Tree pose is comfortable, you can play with shifting your gaze (Drishti) up or to the side. You can place your palms together behind your chest (reverse Anjali Mudra), or take an upper back back bend or side bend.

Tree pose with a side bend

Yoga on and off the mat

Your yoga practice can adjust and change with your body. As you practice, you can make the poses more supportive or more challenging as you need on any particular day. When you meet yourself where you are and honor how you feel, you will always feel better after you practice, even if you just take Child’s pose or Savasana the whole time.

This adaptability is a valuable skill to take off the mat and into your life. The more rigid your mind, the more you will suffer emotionally. The more resilient and flexible your mind, the easier it is to cope with the unpredictable. And life is always unpredictable.

Sangha Sundays starts tomorrow!

Sangha means community, specifically of like-minded people gathering together to share and connect. Sangha Sundays is a monthly online gathering where we discuss practicing yoga off the mat to live with more ease and understanding of ourselves and others.

Topics include: letting go of self judgment, embracing self-compassion, setting down perfectionism, and hearing and listening to your inner wisdom, all through the lens of yoga.

Click the button below for more information or to sign up! Our first meeting is Sunday, September 22 at 6:30pm ET. Paid subscribers get a special rate! You can message me for the link.

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