I had a moment earlier this week which threw me a little. It caused a reaction which doesn’t happen very often anymore, I’m pleased to say.
I’ve been attending a yoga class twice a week for four years. The yoga teacher is lovely and I consider her a friend. She offers more events than just yoga and I try to support her as much as I can.
She runs a monthly women’s healing circle and, although I was worried I’d have to study
my own vagina in a mirror, it turns out to be a loving, supportive and gentle group – without a mirror in sight!
This week we were asked to call out things we felt could be blocks to our wellbeing. The group were quiet so, me being me, I decided to offer something up to get things started. Without too much thought I said money and then added in relation to contributing to the household.
As soon as I had said it, it seemed people started to question me: Did I mean I had no self-worth? Perhaps my self-esteem is low? Maybe I don’t recognise my value within the household?
I started to feel hot and sweaty. My head felt muddled and I started arguing my point. What was my point even? My face was flushed, I brought my knees up to my chest and my biggest thought was why did I open my mouth in the first place? Maybe I do have low self-worth after all? Right then, this didn’t feel very healing and I wanted to leave. This all happened in a matter of seconds, but it felt so powerful at the time.
Then I remembered where my experience was coming from. It wasn’t coming from the group, the discussion topic or the responses being offered up. This physical and emotional response came from within me, internally, from what I was thinking in that moment.
I’d raised a topic which can be a hot potato for me. Money. I had raised it. Then I’d immediately felt confused, so the others in the group felt confused too and tried to help me out. They were only responding to me in that moment.
This experience was a reminder how quickly we can drop from a peaceful feeling to a stormy, muddled head-space and then, once we see this for what it is, we can drop back into a calmer place again. This happens moment to moment to moment to moment.
My experience of the situation was not coming from them; they were not making me feel anything. I was doing that all by myself and then, all myself, I was able to acknowledge my thought-storm and immediately experience something different.
In a previous life, I would have held onto the fact that the others were questioning me too much, putting pressure on me, accusing me even. I would have kept hold of that and dragged it with me to the next yoga class or monthly circle. Perhaps I would have convinced myself not to attend the next session because no-one understood me. I would have felt hot and flustered again just remembering it, maybe I would have shuddered a little with that cringy feeling we all sometimes get.
But what I know is that my brain receives the energy that is Thought and does it’s best to create something from the signals transmitted. Whatever I perceive in that moment is based only on how I’ve interpreted it. My confused and anxious thoughts there and then felt so real to me that I had a physical reaction: hot, sweaty, stumbling over my words.
Now, with my understanding that I created this whole reality of what was happening by the power of thought in that moment, I am able to see the situation for what it was: a group of supportive women responding with love to a (frankly) confused response from me in the first place. I can’t wait for the next group session.
I can look back and laugh at the pickle I found myself in, instead of cringy about it.