For the last few months I have been feeling like something is shifting in my life. Perhaps more than one thing. It feels like a lot of moving pieces with a lot of unknowns and when I look even one year into the future, I see a vast, empty, blankness looking back at me. There has been a heaviness attached to this feeling of unknown. Normally, I would revel in this emptiness, armed with a bright outlook that everything will turn out fine somehow, I need not worry. Lately, carrying a boatload of personal and externally imposed expectations, my usual optimist is nowhere to be found.

The mental and emotional heaviness has been manifesting itself physically and I’m feeling low on energy and not quite myself. The vicious cycle continues to wind itself tighter as my physically unwell translates into further frustration and disgruntled thoughts mentally and spiritually. I made excuses for myself, told them to other people to re-enforce my own beliefs, but at the end of the day, still found myself tired and feeling worn out. Nobody ever said change is easy, but this feeling of stagnation is unusual even for me.

I was reminded today by one of my friends who is also a yoga student of mine, not to worry about the small things. Having missed my last two classes due to feeling ill and sluggish and apologized for being irresponsible as teacher and feeling terrible as a friend, I realized that I had been imposing expectations of myself onto myself which had left me with no other way to feel when I didn’t meet those expectations. Both in my public life and private life, it is inevitable that I construe what other people say or do as expectations that I then project onto myself, on top of my own. My actions do have an affect on others, so how can the two be un-intertwined?

The process is like any other practice. First I had to move through my feelings of disappointment and frustration. Then I had to remind myself that expectations are normal but judgement is unnecessary. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I had to forgive myself and acknowledge that it is a continuous and constant process, that I will have my good days and bad days but as long as I have an intuitive awareness of my feelings, I can effectively let them go and move beyond the limits of expectations. So onwards I go, doing the best I can, with each moment that I have.