Your Perceived Setback Is Set Up For Your Come Back

Our culture often fixates on notions of success that have nothing to do with learning lessons along the way. We also often focus on the perceived negativity on things 'not working as planned' rather than seeing it as an essential aspect of the pathway toward success and the maturation of our spiritual understanding.

Transcript

All right,

So your perceived setback is set up for your comeback.

I will say that again,

Your perceived setback is set up for your comeback.

Many of you follow me on social media,

But if you don't have the benefit of that experience,

One year ago today,

Senator soon to be Vice President,

But currently Vice President-elect and Senator Kamala Harris suspended her campaign for the presidency.

In the circles that I run,

People were pretty upset and all the things.

I had the benefit of working with her and her team for most of last year and this year.

From what I know,

She just got back to work and started advocating for the issues and just kept doing her thing.

So rather than getting upset and despondent,

I'm sure she was clearly not happy with the way that it ended then,

But I'm sure she's okay with it now.

If she was ever not okay with it in the first place.

Liz Goodman,

Who some of y'all know from some of the other classes she put on social media today,

She was like,

You know,

I don't even know if she saw it as a setback.

And that may be the case,

Which is the mentality that I want us to consider today,

Right?

So your setback,

Your perceived setback is your setup for your comeback is what the discipline practice of yoga has afforded me.

I'll give you a little bit more color to that.

So 10 years ago,

I came home from graduate school,

Broke,

Despondent and depressed.

I had a house fire and then left me homeless.

I've shared this with you all before.

And if you had told me 10 years ago that I would have gratitude for being homeless and broken a foreign country,

I would have laughed in your face.

However,

That situation has allowed me to hold space for tremendous compassion.

Part of the reason that the active peace yoga practice has such a high bar of donations that I give away is because of that experience.

So if you've ever been dependent upon the kindness of strangers,

You know that the kindness of strangers is very fickle.

And you know that one person's kind word when you are homeless,

Bouncing from couch to couch,

Wondering where,

What the conversion conversion ratio of your money is that day.

Like when you've got all of these stressors,

One person being kind to you means everything.

So I can now say with clarity that what I went through 10 years ago is part of the reason that I'm so successful today.

So that setback where I said I was homeless,

The woman I was serious with,

We broke up.

So all the things happened in like six weeks.

So it was like Jobian and biblical destruction in my life.

And it allowed me to have the grace and the compassion and the humility from which to build a new life,

Root and service.

So again,

Your perceived setback is set up for your comeback.

So what I want us to do is to consider that in our own lives.

So before we do any of that,

Spend the next minute or so limbering up.

So whatever you need to do to get the body and mind ready to sit for a while.

So maybe that's next stuff.

Maybe that's wrist circles.

Maybe I'll keep this self-directed.

But spend the next minute devoted to clearing space for you to hold space.

Clearing space in the body,

Maybe open and close the jaw,

The wrist circles,

The neck stretches.

Getting into your physicality and using the means of physical connection to open a way for spiritual understanding.

Begin to settle into whatever comfortable seat you have.

Shoulders are back and down per usual,

Navel to spine,

Core engaged please.

Begin to soften the gaze or close eyes altogether to facilitate an internal orientation.

And deepen the breath and deepen the breath consistent with getting in tune with you.

Deep inhales through the nose and out of the nose.

Transitioning from wherever you were to being here right now.

If only incrementally and microscopically,

Expand the breath on the inhale and the exhale each time slow that the pace of life,

Your biorhythm comes down.

Two more breaths,

Each one longer than the one prior to.

And then begin to bring to mind a situation that was once a perceived setback.

It doesn't have to be as dramatic as what I rendered about my homeless Jobian episode in Belgium.

It could be as simple as being fired from a job,

I mean,

Something that happened to you where when it happened,

It just brought you a lot of distress and or discomfort.

Which you now know was a building block for your success,

But go back to when you didn't have that wisdom.

And we're not going to stay here for long,

But I want us to be in touch with the somatic experience of then.

So that as we revisit the wisdom we've gained from then we can sweep away the vestiges of any attachment to that negative feeling that still may exist in your mind,

Heart,

And being.

So keep breath deep.

And with each inhale and exhale,

Keep the feelings in the heart and mind,

But sweep away the attachment to them.

Connect with them as a point of reference,

But not a visceral.

This is the be all end all,

Just a point of reference of what once was.

Two more breaths here.

Again,

Not staying long.

We won't tarry,

But just coming into that somatic recollection of something that was a perceived setback.

Bottom of the next exhale,

Shift your mind and heart to where you are now and what you have gained from that experience.

So shifting the mind from the visitation at what was perceived as a setback to what you have gained from that setback.

Shoulders back and down.

Able to spine,

Core engaged,

Breath deep,

Shifting from what was once a perceived setback to the wisdom that you have gained from that.

Again,

Seeing the perceived setback as the setup for your comeback.

And as you navigate that shift from what once was to the wisdom that now is based on that,

Allow the mind to relish in that wisdom.

Allow the spirit to be nourished by the wisdom gained and derived from that experience.

And because we don't often do this in Western culture,

Begin to give honor to the adversity that gave birth to the wisdom that now informs and nourishes you in this moment.

As I shared in the beginning,

If you had told me 10 years ago,

When I had to borrow a thousand dollars from my father because I had no money,

Because I was homeless and broke in Belgium,

That I would view that as a opportunity to be thankful,

Opportunity to be thankful,

I surely didn't think that then.

But again,

That experience has informed my compassion.

It has made me more humble.

It has made me a better servant of all.

As I said,

It's the reason that active peace yoga is rooted in service and donations,

Because the kindness of strangers matters to those in need,

Have been one of those people in need.

So we won't stay here for much longer,

But deepening the breath in celebration of the wisdom gained and gleaned from the alchemized diversity that was once a perceived setback,

That was the setup for your comeback.

Shoulders back and down so the breath can be full and deep.

Do not let them creep up towards the ears.

Keep them back and down as discipline.

And about two more minutes here,

Rooting and nourishing yourself from the wisdom,

The gratitude,

The perspective gained over the course of distance from the moment that was once again,

A perceived setback.

And it may have well been a setback then,

But it's not anymore.

And as we wind down,

Using the tool of the breath to sweep away vestigial attachment to negative connection,

Where only gratitude and wisdom remain as much as possible.

Casting aside the role of victimhood,

Taking agency in the situation and giving gratitude for lessons learned.

Four more breaths here,

In through the nose,

Out through the nose.

Final breath deep in through the nose.

Exhale out the nose,

Bring hands to heart center,

Pressing into the hands.

Pausing here.

Remembering that again,

Your perceived setback is the setup for your comeback.

And giving gratitude for the experience of revisiting where you were and nourishing yourself with where you are,

Because you can't have one without the other.

Three clearing breaths before we shift from an internal toward an external orientation,

In through the nose,

Out through the mouth,

Deep in through the nose,

Exhale out the mouth.

Exhale out the mouth.

Final inhale through the nose,

Exhale out the mouth,

Bow head towards hands.

And as you're ready,

Open your eyes,

Regain your focus.

Welcome back.

Reviews

This gave me some hope in my current setback by remembering the gifts from a long ago setback that had a positive outcome. I was able to reflect on how this still has an effect in my life now by giving me a love for international community

This is exactly what I needed, and not commonplace on Insight Timer. Thank you so much!

Another amazing and profound meditation. Exactly what I needed at this moment. Thank you. Namaste🙏🏾.