March 12, 2023
These pictures were taken almost exactly 6 years apart ⛰️
1. February 2023, somewhere in Namibia in Africa.
2. February 2016, at the Grand Canyon, USA.
I’m not posting just as proof that yoga “works”.
It’s not to show you that my wheel pose has improved.
The first picture is a woman who understands, respects, acknowledges, and tends to her body and her experience in it. I don’t wanna say I’ve ‘arrived’ at full acceptance, but my god I have a lot of love for my body and for *all* bodies these days.
I had no idea that connecting to body would reveal such a deep and complex network of understanding.
Studying #somatics has proved to be the most important decision of my life, thus far —
#thebodykeepsthescore, y’all.
I don’t claim to know everything, at all. I know we each have different beautiful paths, goals, and desires.
I do know some things for sure. I know that there is time. Please tell me you can believe that, too. Tell me you understand that age, timelines, and pressure are mostly created systems. Join me in shouting that most of the ‘rules’ are made up. We may as well be ourselves, regardless.
The main difference between me at 30 and me at 35 isn’t that one is bendier. It’s that I have committed to be as much me as I can over the last 6 years.
In 2016, I see and feel my ‘trying’ energy (so, so hard). I want to slap her on the wrist. I want to cower in shame. But instead, I look at that girl trying so hard with a whole lot of love. She was trying. Trying to be the girl who had her then fiancé take yoga pictures, trying to fit in. Trying to be American. And Italian. Trying so damn hard to keep up with the Jones’.
I remember on that particular vacation waking up most days with a jolt, wanting to make plans, fill the days, fill the hours. Fill up space so I didn’t have to look inwards. So I didn’t have to question my existence. So I could as one friend puts it, “comfortably keep sitting on the needle”. I wanted to control everything.
These days, I try a little less, and I bend a little more.
