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Fearlessness and the F Word

Last night I took my second hot yoga class at Breathe Yoga Studios.  90 minutes in a 100-105 degree room.  26 poses, done twice.  You may have heard of Bikram Yoga, and this would be similar.  There are places on the web where you can sign up for 30-day Bikram Yoga Challenges, and everywhere, you can read of people’s lives who have been changed by it.  It’s intense.  It’s exhausting.  It’s exhilarating.

Anthony, my instructor, is very forgiving and says things like, “Every practice is beautiful,” which, of course, makes it so much easier when I’m falling from a tree pose…or can’t stretch the full extension for camel pose.  That’s one of the draws of yoga (and good instructors).  You feel a little like you’re in a room with other people who accept the fact that you’re not there yet, and it’s okay, because they don’t care what you’re doing.  They’re there to improve (or mend) themselves.  It’s like being greeted in an AA meeting—where they know what you’re about and they don’t care.  Maybe they don’t care is incorrect; maybe it’s that they do care, but they realize they only have the capability and responsibility to change themselves.

So, the past few days, I’ve been thinking about fearlessness in conjunction with the fear of failure (the F word referred to in the title of this post).  I saw two things yesterday that affected me deeply—JK Rowling’s Harvard University commencement speech on the fringe benefits of failure (I know, such an ironic title for such a successful woman!) and a two-and-a-half-minute Def Jam Poetry presentation by Daniel Beaty called “Knock Knock.”  Disparate things…but incredible, nonetheless.  [See below for both presentations.]

Then I thought about Anthony.  I’d seen Anthony’s tattoos on Monday night (for my first hot yoga class) and couldn‘t get them out of my mind.  The amazingly detailed wings on his back returned in my dreams and during my waking hours.  There’s a fearlessness, a boldness in them.  Something that says, “This is who I am.”  Some people might call it other things–defiance or courage.  I’m calling it fearlessness.

People wearing tattoos are fearless enough to have a visual representation of their lives permanently inked upon their bodies.  They are not afraid of change.  They are happy to tell you where they’ve been.  They seem comfortable in their own skin.

How I long for this kind of honesty and forthrightness in relationships!  I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many people (including me) who can sit down with someone and say “Yeah, here I was thinking this” and “I did this because of a difficult period in my life….”  Especially when you’ve just met a person.

Last night, I asked Anthony if I might share his incredible, exquisitely winged back with you, and he said yes.  In the center is a guardian angel.  The wings came later, when he started doing yoga and was finding freedom and strength in the practice of the poses.  The thorns along the top represent the things that burden and weigh us down.  The Sanskrit saying bridging his shoulders is something he says to us at the end of class, Lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu (or May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.)

My wish is this.  That I may be so transparent and fearless.  That I may ignore the possibility of failure, because if I’m truly honest with myself, I can only learn and grow through failure.  And if that’s true, failure is not a bad thing; it’s just one of the many steps along this journey we’re taking.

Maybe we should talk about the other word instead.  Forgiveness.  To oneself and to others.   Can you see how they’re all interrelated?

Life is too short not to be fearless.  Once you’ve failed miserably at something, you realize the sun keeps tracking across the sky.  Your family still loves you (well, some of them, at least).  You keep going.  You pick yourself up, brush off your knees, and try again.

As JK Rowling says, “So why do I talk about the benefits of failure?  Simply because failure mean[s] a stripping away of the inessential.  I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.  Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.  I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.  And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

So.  What is the one thing you’d never try because you’re too afraid of failing?  Can you surround yourself with people who will cheer as you venture out and try this scary thing—people who will act as jump-sheet holders, so that when you fall, they’re there to catch you?

Are you ready to be fearless and forgiving of yourself?

One more gift from Anthony–something he wrote and wished to share:

“True freedom is to be free from the shackles of emotions–all emotions.  Understand that happy, sad, angry, envy, fear, all these things and more are part of your being but not meant to run our lives and actions.  Instead practice to control these feelings completely.  Breathe with them, dance with them, embrace them with a smile and a curiosity as to why they have come to control you.  Then learn to control them.  Only you have the power to shift your actions and reactions from negative to constant positive compassion toward all beings and their emotions as well.  Set yourself free.”  [Thanks, Anthony!]

*    *    *

Here’s JK Rowling’s speech, entitled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure”–given to Harvard graduates in June of 2008.  Divided into two parts.

Part 1:

Part 2:

And Daniel Beaty’s “Knock Knock”.  You might want to grab some Kleenex for this one.

May your weekend be fearless, in some small way.  Baby steps, right?

One Comment

  1. […] I was wobbling and falling all over the place last night in my hot yoga class (yes, I’ve been doing this for two weeks now), I got to thinking, “This is so wrong. I think I’m going backward.”  How do we designate […]

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