Getting Back on The Horse

Coming back to something after a hiatus can cause feelings of shame to rush up. Maybe more so than the period of not doing the activity.

During the period of not doing (yoga, writing, meditating, blogging, whatever), it's possible to suppress thoughts about the activity. But when trying to get back on the horse, embarrassment wends its sneaky way in: "No one noticed that I was gone before, but now that I'm back, they'll realize." Or "when I do it this time, people will know that I'm a failure, because they'll remember the time that I stopped doing it."

For me anyway, what's remarkable about the thought patterns that make getting back on the horse difficult is how much they concern ideas of how others will see me and how very little they are to do with my own feelings about the activity.

Writing these posts and making it to the yoga studio regularly (two things I've fallen off while getting used to the new semester and working on my book), bring me pleasure that has nothing to do with anyone's view of the activities. They are also activities that I do because I find them good for me, if others are happy I'm doing them, that's just gravy. And yet, like many, I suspect, while I conceive of my "successful" execution of these practices in private terms, my sense of failure is a public one. And one that's based in the stories I tell myself, not reality.

If we ask ourselves, "what is the main thing that will happen when I return to my practice?" The answer is very simple, we'll be practicing again. And that's a good thing.

---