Finding my Footing
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 7:14 PM | Pranalife Yoga My feet are what I semi-affectionately call “gimpy”. They were the original source of my scoliosis and have never really reached their potential, though yoga practice has taken them heaps beyond where they were. They’re responsive to exercise but I still have collapsed inner and outer arches and poor bone alignment. It makes for some frustrating sensations when focusing on their healing/improvement.
This morning I spent two hours with Diane Bruni at Downward Dog in Toronto working with Zaa Bands to focus on aligning and energizing our feet. As with many moments in yoga over the past dozen years, this morning I focused intently on lifting my arches, spreading my toes, rooting my big toe, working to feel grounded. My fingers would mimic my desired foot action, but often my feet would just get fatigued without much result. Sometimes I would feel overwhelmed with thoughts like What if I can never fix my feet and always struggle with just the foundation of things? Often I was self-critical and defeated (no pun intended) by thoughts like What kind of yogi am I, not even able to stand much less fly? Needless to say, today was two hours of frustrating melded with good learning … when I could stop feeling frustrated.
My feet, my foundations, are flawed. They don’t support me the way they were built to, and I feel that ricochet up my entire being. But these are true yoga moments. Life will always be full of temptations to quit, judge, compare, be held back, wane or simply make things harder by adding drama/dukkha. The practice isn’t just in lifting my arches; it’s in lifting my awareness. Feeling my physical foundation as weak was an opportunity to recognize why I often feel insecure, unstable, tired by the effort of basic living, and truly not sure-footed in life as well.
Like most women subjected to the daily assault of messages in our culture telling us how we should be, look, do, think, dress, laugh, speak, move, blah blah, I’ve fallen under the tire of self-degradation. I wish my body were less bony, my butt less ample, my feet less gimpy. I have wasted so much of my energy trying to fit the cut-out of ‘the perfect woman’, for whatever that brings us. But instead of letting that self-talk destabilize me, what I was really practicing today was the art of standing on My Own two feet. I directed my fluctuating mind, quieted my emotionality and focused instead on what I could learn, what I might heal, how to work with My body, not to make it into someone else’s version of what it apparently “should” be but to make it the best version of Me it can be.
This is no small task. It often feels like it is my duty to self-loathe, as though if I were to say I’m fine just as I am that I’d be quitting on the noble deed of trying to be more like the woman I’m “supposed” to be. But WTF is that about? Why accept this bullshit pursuit? Will I really never find love unless I have larger breasts? Will I really only achieve what I desire if I fit the bill set out for me by Vogue? Who am I becoming by succumbing to these ridiculous scripts?
You know what I’d prefer? I’d prefer to stand up - on my own two currently-gimpy feet, might I add - in the midst of this crap and say, “I’m going to spend time working on having stronger feet instead of worrying about them being prettier. I’m going to decide that I can be exactly who I am and that will be just damn fine. I’m going to unplug from this Matrix BS and start living a life where my net worth isn’t determined by my cup size. Now who’s with me!!”
Man, I wonder what’ll happen when we Zaa Band my core!
