This quote is a famous one from RuPaul, who when I was in my early 20's came out with a few popular songs on the charts as the first Drag Queen pop star. But who now hosts this show which I've mentioned before and won't get into again right now. But the point is she's saying it to these men who have created a female character that they dress up as and perform, and yet even then they need to be more aware of who they really are, more fully themselves than ever to carve their own niche in the market. And to me it's not even really about the marketing of themselves, it's more about celebrating diversity and being an individual, even if you steal an idea from someone, someway you're going to make it your own.
This is completely against the herd mentality that is prolific in the Western world, even it's creeping its way into the Eastern world as well. But how do we do this? Learn to love ourselves?
I believe the first step of that is judgment. If you are noticing that you are a judgmental bitch, always pointing out what's wrong with the "other" person, or even always pointing something out, not necessarily a "bad" thing, just a thing. Then that is indication that this same overly discerning behavior is going back to yourself. Now, to a certain degree we need to be aware of what we're doing, how we're acting towards ourself and other in public, and in private, but not for the reasons you think. Because our brain, yes the physical apparatus made up of goo and cells with electrical charges going through it, doesn't know the difference between what we're saying to ourselves or others so takes it to heart that we feel badly about something within us. Whether it be body weight, frizzy hair, judging our judgmental nature, how big our ass is, how small or big our cock is, are there new wrinkles there, have stretch lines popped up, is my back hairier than it was last week, whatever the hell it might be.
If we are judging others, we are also judging ourselves as far as our body knows.
Also, repression. Do you repress your emotions? Do you allow yourself to feel things as they come up?
I just watched a movie again last night, but this time at the theatre ( and was up way past my bedtime), Call Me By Your Name. This very different sort of love story. Not different in that the two characters in love were both men, I'm a gay man so that's irrelevant to me. But different in the way the story unfolded. Oddly enough this movie here is being embraced by many, many straight people because yes, it is just a damn good love story.
I won't get into the story right now but this Professors son has an affair with his father's apprentice who in the book the boy is 17 and the apprentice 24, not a big difference as we get older but then it could have been. But it wasn't treated that way, or as a bad thing by the boys parents. When the summer was over and the apprentice left the boy was heart broken and his father and he had a conversation that was pivotal to me. He embraced the love his son and this older man had shared and told him, encouraged him really, to embrace the things he was feeling, to let them be there in his body and not try to suppress them or bury them into a non-feeling place. It was a long conversation and as a 48 year old gay man who came out in the 80's, the era this movie was set in, this is not something I heard, or anyone I know of heard from their father. So it was lovely and really made me cry.
But it also made me think and feel and cry all the way home. We are taught so hard in our youth, usually anyway, to shut those valves off. To not let anyone see us showing these emotions. Even to not allow them to come out. And this is one of the worst things adults can do to their children. When you repress something you create a separation within your body, something your mind picks up on and believes that we are not a whole person, we are not integrated. So we act in the future from a place of disconnection. But if we were taught this, that this fictional character was teaching his son, we could integrate those emotions into our being, learn to be fully who we really are, and even yes, maybe learn to love ourself.
Would this be so wrong?
Yoga means union. So the question I always ask myself now as I'm getting more and more mature in my practice, and in my life, is does this serve the union. Now you may ask what union? I say the union of self with Self, or inner being with my physical being, or God and man, or feminine and masculine, or whatever else can be in balance, or in union with one another. To me though it's spirit and physical. We so often think they are separate, they are not, they are one thing. The spirit enables these bodies to move and walk around. Even channels the electricity to each corner as it's needed, moving the blood, lymph, synovial fluids and more to where they are needed most at each moment.
So doing the asana/yoga practice to me is about facilitating this union to happen, and sometimes not, depending on how regular you are being with your practice. And once the union is served maybe there is a little more space for you to find love for yourself, and once you truly learn how to love yourself there is no possible way you cannot love others more properly. More unconditionally.
How are you serving yoga today? Yoga as union, not yoga as an asana practice only. Or are you? Are you aware of it? If you're choosing to be less aware today, that's okay too, we all need a little break. But you'll soon find that this will be virtually impossible at some point in the future.
Once the union starts taking root, you feel better and once you feel better you KNOW when you feel the slightest bit less good, or the same, or even better. You know and once you know, it's hard to go back to just allowing yourself to feel not so good anymore.
How are you feeling today?
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