Sometimes Gifts suck.

Tonight as I sit down to write, I do not feel like it, I do not feel like feeling, I do not want to feel the tears streaming down my face.  But I am.  For you.  Because some days I just don’t have it in me for me….but I have made it my responsibility in life, to show up for you, and at the end of the day, that always brings me back to me.  You bring me back to me.  

Back to remembering that to NOT feel would be like telling life…”no thank you.”  

Like when being offered this beautiful gift, wrapped in golden shimmering paper and tied with a red velvety ribbon….you say….”nah, I think I’ll pass,” because that’s what you are doing when you numb yourself from feeling the feels of life.  We all have our favorite numbing tactics…some may prefer pills, others food, others drugs, tv, shopping, work, sex, porn, you name it, someone’s using it to NOT feel.  

As I recall there was no warranty, or lifetime guarantee presented to my mother when I was born, promising only the warm fuzzy feels and if there was, well then you know the fine print was definitely overlooked.  Because that fine print read something like listing the symptoms on a Lyrica commercial…

Side effects may include: irritability, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, constipation, diaherra, dry mouth, worsening depression, anxiety, trouble sleeping, dangerous impulses or violence, suicidal thoughts, and I could go on and on.

So every SINGLE day we need to get up and open our gift….sometimes it’s exactly the gift we wanted, it’s that sparkly unicorn you can ride through your day, and sometimes it’s more like the present from my Grandmother on christmas, the kind where she cleans out her closet and each grandchild receives a knick knack from 1980.  

What I have found is that it isn’t even about the gift, it’s about the opening, it’s about the courage and consistency to get up and open yourself to the gift of life EVERY SINGLE DAY….and that’s what yoga teaches us….to show up on our mat….as we are, be that messy, complicated, or afraid, we show up, we take the baby steps that may seem totally inconsequential, BUT are totally Consequential in learning how to open our gifts with grace, with humility, and with the understanding that sometimes, it’s not understandable.

You beautiful. You are whole. You are enough.

-Andrea Dawn