Day 34 - The beautifully revolting process of self-discovery

As you know or as you've most likely heard, yoga helps you "discover yourself." Yeah well, sometimes it really ain't pretty. Sometimes it sucks and it's enough to make you ask, "why am I doing this anyway?" And sometimes, the old saying "ignorance is bliss" feels perfectly valid.

Take today for example. With all this yoga and all these ayurvedic treatments, things are starting to come to the surface. After venting to Marianne, the manager of my studio, about how unfair it is for me to work so much and pick up everyone's slak, I have come to the realization that I don't properly communicate, so I take on too much and micro-manage to the point where I end up doing almost everything myself. Then, I feel grumpy and frustrated. My tone can be sharp and aggressive, and then I feel guilty. I wonder if I'm hard to work with and if people dislike working for me. Am I an aggressive person? And does this make me a bad yogi?

I suppose it's better that I see this, but it can also be destabilizing. It makes question why I spend so much time doing yoga.

Marianne and I finished our conversation on a good note. She thinks that because I'm a "creative artist" type, my vision is grand and can be difficult for others to grasp. She says that I need to surround myself with more people who understand this, so I can communicate with more ease. Hearing her say this, eased my guilt a little. Anyway, I think I need to percolate a little more.

Ironically, this morning I randomly opened Pema Chodron's book, Comfortable with Uncertainty, as came across this quote:

"Being a buddah isn't easy. It's accompanied by fear, resentment, and doubt. But learning to leap into open space with our fear, resentment, and doubt is how we fully become human beings...Taking refuge in the buddha means that we are willing to spend our life reconnecting with the quality of being continually awake. Every time we feel like taking refuge in escape, we take off more armour, undoing all the stuff that covers over our wisdom and our greatness and our awake quality. So when we say, 'I take refuge in the Buddha,' that means I take refuge in the courage and the potential of fearlessness, of removing all the armour that covers the awakeness of mine. I am awake; I will spend the rest of my life taking this armour."

I guess this says it all. The reward of disarming the self is a dream, but so I persevere not know to what end I shall journey.

108 more surya namaskars x 74 more days... + about 80 years left for me to discover.

(PS I will be in the country for the next few days and I'm not sure it I will have access to the internet...)