Day 18: Love

As anticipated, today's practice began with an emphasis on self love. One of my biggest critiques of yoga has been its almost obsessive interest in the self: the divine within, self expression, and self love. As someone who has had a microscopic view of myself, I'm trying to break free of this obsessive state, and participate in the world, to be invested in issues outside of myself, and to focus on a larger community.

Adriene challenged this notion while simultaneously connecting love to the self. Once you cultivate a love for the self, you can start to extend that love to the community: "not just the Yoga with Adriene community, but the larger community. Love connects us."

Communities ostensibly bound by anger or frustration are often driven by a sense of love: protests against anti-abortion laws represent a love for our fellow women. Anger at a child or family member may come from sadness and fear that they will not be okay. Fury at existing gun control laws come from love for fellow humans whose lives ended prematurely because some nutcase could pick up a gun.

It's hard to write about this without getting angry myself.

That's not to say the neo-nazi groups or white supremacists are bound by love. Like with anything, there are exceptions to this rule.

In order to feel—really feel—love for others, we must first love ourselves. What sounds like a horrendous cliché turns out to be true when you experience it on a visceral level. When I've hated or criticized myself, I was consumed by a mission to change, to be a better person, and to analyze and obsess over everything I've done or felt in the past, or everything I could do or feel in the future. I didn't have time to be inspired by something an author wrote, to ask my family or friends about their day. Anxiety is a black hole of worry, which kind of turned me into a shit person.

There is a huge distinction between self love and narcissism or self-obsession. When we love ourselves, we can be open (another major theme in yoga) to other experiences, other people, other voices.

Throughout the practice, Adriene says, "take what you need, and leave what you don't." While my first thought was "this could really help me with my shopping addiction," I also recognized the profound nature of this statement. We can accept our flaws, or even vow to work on them, and then let it go. As it turns out, you don't need to run around screaming "I'm awesome!" in order to love yourself. Unless you make a delicious cheesecake. Then that's perfectly acceptable.

In connecting to the other themes of this yoga journey, love can expand us. It can open up space to reach outside of ourselves and offer positivity, empathy, and joy into the world.

As is Adriene's mantra, "inhale love in, exhale love out."

Namaste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClsOGe8vj9o