Why am I never going to be a proper Yogi?

Beautiful Katja Kiuttu!

Today I went for my yoga lesson with one of my favourite instructors Katja Kiuttu. I was really looking forward to it, at the same time feeling a bit uneasy. For the past weeks I have been practicing yoga less than normal and I can feel it in my body and my mental state directly. The amazing thing with the practice however is that I now already know that after a while into it I will start to feel better and I will slowly get into the flow of the movement and my mind will quiet down (at least slightly).

For the past few weeks it has just been a lot happening and I have felt like I have been running from one place to another. Normally I practice at home at least once a week but I have felt so stressed so even the smallest asana has felt like too much to do. The good thing is however that I already know that also this will pass and soon I am back to my normal routines again.

During the first asanas today I felt so stiff. I mean I am an extremely stiff person, but today I felt like I would have never done anything to make my body a little less rigid. Falling of horses hundreds of times does of course nothing to counteract this feeling and suddenly it hit me that I will probably never be like them. And with them I mean our beautiful instructor Katja Kiuttu and the few others that get into any kind of pose with the smallest of ease. I could feel myself thinking that I am not as flexible as them. I am not as good as them.

And then we got into balancing poses and off I went. I am strong I thought. Very strong. My legs keep holding on to me when the rest of me is way off. I can stand in Garudhasana or Ardha Chandrasana for a long time and I love staying in Dancer's Pose or doing the Wild Thing. And I felt proud of myself. Somewhere deep inside I thought that I am good in some ways and we all have something to be proud of.

And then it hit me.....

Nothing of this really matters. It doesn't matter if I am stiff or if I am strong. It doesn't matter if I do my yoga practice everyday or sometimes just once a week. What truly matters is that I do it and that an instructor like Katja Kiuttu has always been there for me in ways that she can probably never even imagine. She was there the day that I got fired:  I remember entering the yoga studio early in the morning and telling her that I needed to leave a bit early because people were being laid off and I had a strong feeling that I was one of them. I remember thinking when I cried and was shaking after the big news that I could not have made the day with such honour without the morning practice that calmed my already tense nerves. Afterward I was thinking that without my yoga I might not have seen the beauty in getting laid of and what an opportunity it was for me to grow.

What truly matters is that yoga was there for me when I was in the middle of a relationship that no longer was benefiting either partner in a positive way. I remember entering the studio so many early mornings with tears in my eyes and Katja always meeting me with a smile. Never questioning, never wondering. Just letting me enter my mat and my universe and slowly getting myself together for the day. Sometimes I was too tired to even move but she just let me lie there.

When I am writing this I am crying again because I realise how much my yoga practice has given me. Being a very sensitive person with strong emotions it has helped me through so much and it has made me grow more as a person than I could have ever thought possible. And yes, I will never be the one with the perfect ponytail or the finest alignments in the pose but if that is all we are looking for we are looking in the wrong direction.