Eyes On Your Own Mat

Settle yourself. Let your breath be a gentle tether, holding you in place as you inhale. Exhale. Welcome to a Hit of Hope. That person over there is doing better than you. Did you know that? Do you feel that? Let’s get real. There’s a chorus out there, and it’s singing one refrain: you are not enough.

Transcript

Settle yourself.

Let your breath be a gentle tether,

Holding you in place as you inhale and exhale.

Welcome to a hit of hope.

That person over there is doing better than you are.

Did you know that?

Do you feel that?

Let's be real.

There's a chorus out there,

And that's the refrain that it is singing.

You are not enough.

The voices that make up that choir might be a parent's voice,

And old flames.

And it probably doesn't come as a surprise.

You are not enough is at the heart of almost every single advertisement.

Because you must buy their product to make you look,

Smell,

And do better.

Push,

Primp,

Starve,

Stress.

You are not enough.

Why is it so easy to believe those voices?

Why is it so easy to think that when you look at other people's lives,

When you compare yours to theirs,

And you think,

I am not enough?

In yoga,

There's a phrase that sometimes gets used.

Eyes on your own mat.

Does the person next to you have their feet behind their head?

Isn't that nice for them?

Eyes on your own mat.

Does the person next to you look better?

Do they have more?

If there is someone pacing around the floor of your brain pan whispering,

You are not enough.

Eyes on your own mat.

Stand on your own breath.

That tether holding you here as you inhale.

Exhale.

You do not have to compete or compare.

Tell the voices to fuck off.

Be no.

You are enough.

Namaste.

Reviews

Mind your own breath .another gem of healing 🙏🕯️🎗️❤️🎗️🕯️🙏 thank you for itall.

Wonderful, wonderful!!! I am sure that you can guess at which point I laughed out loud. Thank you!

I could connect easily with this meditation. The lady who I volunteer for gave me a bracelet before school started that said,” You are enough"!🤗 As far as where you said,”Keep your eyes on your own mat reminded me of ALL the times I would have to tell my 3rd graders to keep their eyes on their own paper!
I appreciate the time you take to respond to the reviews I write 😀. I listen to your voice as soon as I get in bed each night.
Bless you 🌞🦋🙏🏻

Thank you Betsy, just what I needed to hear. Namaste

Thank you Betsy! I am enough! I’ll tell the voices to fudge off! Namaste 🙏

Thanks for this reminder. So true I am enough. Forget it too often. In sports and in life it's better to use oneself as a reference point, be self-sufficient and to not to envy anyone.

So here's my deep thought as I lay here, wishing I could sleep (it's that part of my sleep cycle where my natural bedtime doesn't align with the alarm clock) and my inability to sleep combined with your words to produce the extension to the foundation of "you are not enough" (hereafter referred to for brevity as "YANE").

Each person individually accepts or rejects the notion of YANE. When enough people accept it, that creates an environment where marketing techniques as you described can thrive. Moreover, the adoption of the marketing messages predisposes individuals - now a YANE-believing collective - to accept other societal messages as well.

Like how (for many more seasoned/elder individuals), a freelancing lifestyle isn't "real work." No, you must have a 9-to-5 j-o-b because that is acceptable by society and worthwhile. Implying anything less than regular hours is - you guessed it - "not enough".

And so the cycle perpetuates itself. A person is a YANE believer, and consequently accepts societal messaging on everything from physical appearance to work schedule (ahem) to the house with a white picket fence, 2.5 kids and a dog, with a gold watch after retiring.

Only the world doesn't work like that anymore. I did some coursework as an undergrad in influence and persuasion psychology, and my graduate work was largely centered on vocational psych. I have worked in vocational rehabilitation and various disability/social services for almost two decades.

This has taught me, in the trenches, that each person is unique, has differing needs to survive and thrive, and is the most beautiful self they can ever be, no matter what. No one else CAN be them, after all. They are the perfect them, even on their worst days. They are always enough. To quote the Dread Pirate Roberts, "Anyone who says otherwise is selling something." (Drat that marketing again!)

Yet even knowing this, and trying to show them the beauty of who they are and that they are most certainly enough, they still fall under the spell of society's expectations. Keeping up with the Joneses, as it were. And while I understand and support some of the areas they wish to change (finding a stable home so they can stop living in a car or homeless shelter, get their kids back once there is a separate bedroom available, etc), it saddens me to see how much pressure they put on themselves to conform.

Conform to what, exactly? Societal messaging, but of course. So here we find ourselves in a Catch-22 perpetuated by the flawed yet fundamental acceptance of the YANE principle.

This happens 27/7/365, but particularly around the holiday season. I lay here, unable to sleep due to a known medical condition, contemplating how little sleep I will have when I must get out of bed to clock in at the time established by my employer, despite it not being conducive to my best health. (Those two and a half months off work post-surgery taught me a lot about how my optimal sleep cycle runs.)

Not only that, but I got home late tonight because I had to - "had to," you'll note - finish holiday shopping for colleagues I barely know, just because it is part of company culture and expected. Then I thought of the unwrapped gifts and gift bags in my car, and how I need to assemble them which will involve getting up even earlier, and then earlier still so I can go to the office, drop the gifts off, then drop my car off at the shop for a regular maintenance service.

All these expectations. All put out there by society, and all things I have rarely questioned accepting, all because I originally bought into the simple YANE fallacy.

Keeping my eyes on my own mat has never been a problem for me. I just didn't truly realize how dirty my mat actually is until now. Seems to me high time to take some conscious corrective action in that respect.

Starting with getting the sleep I need, when I need it, and advocating for the recognition of the workplace accommodations already on file relating to flexible scheduling due to fatigue and daytime napping.

Interesting how a yoga-illustrated "you are enough" practice can morph into a treatise on the YANE principle and the effects of acceptance of said principle upon the development and subsequent acceptance of societal norms, which then shape culture to further reflect it's own underpinnings in a self-perpetuating cycle. (Sounds like a worthwhile thesis or possibly even dissertation topic to me.)

In any case, excellent topic, excellent talk as always. Thank you for sharing. I see the light in you...as I close my eyes to a Solfeggio/theta wave/binaural beats sleep practice in hopes of getting at least a few hours of rest before societal expectations dictate I get up again to begin yet another day. Peace. 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻

UPDATE WITH REPLY:
You're too kind, Betsy. I won't deny that I have considered starting a blog from time to time. However, I have such a wide range of interests that I wouldn't know what to call it. Beyond that, I don't know if I would want to tie myself (at this point) to regular written output. I was a columnist for an internationally circulated magazine for a few years, and for a few more, I was a regular contributor to another publisher's almanac. Each of those gigs had a theme, which helped me stay focused and build an audience.

I may ramble frequently these days with musings and sparks of connection (hmm...maybe that would make a decent blog name...similar to my column which was "Connecting the Dots" though that was about current events and potential impact on the readership's daily lives, etc). At the end of the day though, I often have genuine desire to inform, and something unfocused isn't likely to reach too many. I'm also not the best at marketing myself (which is why the book I wrote years ago is not as well-known as my publisher, author friends, and others tell me it should be).

That said, perhaps a no-limits blog would work as a perspective blog rather than a topic-based one. In which case, I have the perfect name for it already and have given this name to my personal philosophy and approach to life since the '90s. It might just work. I just don't have the faintest idea where or how to set one up. I could ask some of my friends with blogs (I have guest-written a few entries), I suppose.

I appreciate the suggestion. Means a lot to me. I think I may just re-visit the idea now that you've brought it back up again...though I still don't know what I would say in it or use it for. 😊

I LIKED that!! Wasn't expecting the F bomb!! LMAO!!

Thank you for this beautiful practice. Namaste. 😌🙏💗

This plucked just the right string in me to make all the stress and tension come pouring out, reminding me that I can just BE; I don't have to DO DO DO DO infinitely.

🙏 I'm the one with my legs behind my head and my eyes closed. 😂 Ha ha.
Thank you. I am enough. 💕

Clear and to the point. Self acceptance!
Thank you again. Awesome humor, much better then poetry. LOL!

You are more than enough. You are not a failure because you don't make millions or don't have the perfect home/job/car/family/body (quite the opposite, in fact)
You have a whole fucking universe inside your head. Instagram that. Not superficial crap that means nothing, teaches you nothing and gives nothing. Be YOU, with no apologies. That is where your true power lies. Namaste 🙏💫

Love.Love.Love. The one curse word used near the end of the meditation, makes this feel more down to earth and real to me. Thank you thank you thank you ❤

That was perfect! Thank you. Just the message I needed to hear this morning!

Listening to you is a pure delight.
Thank you and Namaste 🧘‍♀️🤗

A true sponge to your words this morning; my gratitude is beyond words. Peace to you.
Namaste