Dusk dresses in lush pinks and streaks of scarlet outlined in tangerine.
She adorns in hues for Valentine’s Day, I muse, and slowly maneuver my overflowing yoga bag and the lingering residue of the day down onto the bedroom floor.
Watching the sky coquettishly sashay in blushing shades momentarily suspends the intensity of my hot red embarrassment. I stand and gaze into the darkening horizon, simply present in the sting of emotional discomfort, and feel the grouchy ache of my shoulder, a rumble of hunger, a tiredness that can now be released from a day of teaching and holding space.
I glance back into the mirror to double check, and sure enough, it’s still there – a comet line of bright red, mimicking the sky, running from my bottom lip to my chin.
“Bloody Mary.”
The infamous name of the NYX lipstick that -- unknowingly to me – rocketed into rebellion while I taught a tween yoga class.
I had the opportunity to teach several tween yoga classes this week, and taking a cue from Valentine’s Day, contemplate how this love holiday connects to the yoga practice. And in that pondering, I keep returning to my fifteen-year-old self and her Wednesday afternoon teen yoga class.
Why did yoga speak to me as a teen?
“Acceptance.”
Yoga is a practice of acceptance. In order to learn poses in all their complexity and curiosity, in order to pay sweet attention in meditation, I had to soften into acceptance for the moment, exactly as it is, and to work with my body, exactly as it is, and to befriend myself, exactly as I am.
Acceptance radically frees.
There’s a relinquishment of striving, judging, resisting, suppressing.
There’s an allowing, an acknowledgment, a gentle and brave witnessing that lets whatever needs to bloom exist – without needing to explain it, change it, identify with it. And the “it” could be the emotion, the story spewing from the emotion, the narrative on repeat.
Acceptance is active, courageous, powerful. Through acceptance, I reclaim presence, and in reclaiming presence, there’s the clarity, the inspiration, the rooted peace emerging on when and how to proceed.
Looking in the mirror at the painted stripes of lipstick, I am gazing at that teen still yearning for acceptance.
And it is my own acceptance, my own peace, I strive to achieve.
I know exactly when I traced my chin with that “Bloody Mary” stain – with a motion expressing self-acceptance.
“Arms lift up, palms meet, let thumbs trace the face – forehead, nose, lips, chin -- a befriending of the you you are here and pause in front of the heart space.”
Yep. The Universe might as well write out the lesson in red lipstick across my mirror. The cringing irony startles either a laugh or a cry. Perhaps, both.
I’m trying too hard, again.
So I look in the mirror and lean into the lesson.
Accept. I accept that teaching this particular class overwhelmed me. And feel chagrined to admit this honest response to myself. I pride myself on being a swift and impromptu creative instructor. But today, even though I plan and center myself before teaching, I cling and operate to expectations that stunt my capacity to accurately perceive what the group needs.
“I can do better!” I want to proclaim to the teachers observing. “Let me come back and teach! I swear I can do better!”
As if this yoga practice is all about me, or my worth as a teacher. I am a human, and these kids, for all my preaching and teaching on acceptance, are my teachers instructing me.
It is what is. It was what it was. I did the best I could do.
And the children, especially tweens who are bluntly honest, didn’t say a thing about my decorated chin. They share their Valentine candy with me, and even get me to sing a spontaneous rap about “Namaste.”
Was this the class I expected to teach? No. Did it work out anyway? We all took three quiet breaths, so yes. And if all I do is facilitate a moment of stillness, then this is enough.
And I am enough right here.
Later, I share this whole story over the phone to my Sagittarius childhood friend Valentine. We laugh, and she coos understanding and I feel seen, accepted, and supported. I venture outside to feel the flirting hints of a spring still present in the perfume of a February night and listen to how my friend speaks. This graciousness and unconditional love can be weaved into my self-talk, too.
Valentine’s Day brings me back to the gritty and messy practice that can be self-acceptance, self-love. But I’m committed. My teenage self recognized yoga would be a teacher leading me back to embracing myself, and I give thanks for the tween yoga classes that reminded me that self-acceptance is where my healing begins and growth extends.
I retrace my lips in that Bloody Mary shade to give a kiss of thanks for the reminder to lovingly befriend my number one Valentine. The gal with red lipstick on looking back at me in the mirror.