Where You Are…

What I’ve had to eat today:

• Coffee
• Gluten-free Pretzels with Nutella

“Honor where you are.”

This is a phrase that “my” yoga instructor often states in the middle of a session.  You are feeling great? Awesome, honor where you are.  You are feeling like your arms are going to give out underneath you? Alright, honor where you are.  You did not make it to the mat yesterday?  Okay, but honor where you are.  This phrase has become a great motto for me as I journey to push myself.

I am capable of great things.  However doing great things and being great, for most people, usually, means that they have had to practice doing great things.  This means that at one point they were likely not so great.  At one point, they were normal…maybe even subpar.  At one point what they were putting out into the world was not what they are showing now.  The steps between where they are now and where they were likely went something like this:

• Take note of what you are putting out
• Take responsibility
• Make steps to change
• Keep making those same steps until a new goal is put into place

This is something I am sure we have ALL tried at least once in at least one area of our lives.  Many have this as a practice to attempt on a yearly basis (#NYresolutions).  I have attempted this many times throughout my life, to varying degrees of success (most of which, err on the side of failure).  This year, this go ’round, I caught this phrase.

“Honor where you are.”

Where am I? I am working for a job I thought I liked quite a lot but have really never fit in.  I am, because of that, not putting out the best work possible.  I am making huge steps to becoming a much better version of myself outside of work.  I am (again) a burgeoning runner.  I am a novice yogi.  I am a writer.  I am an entrepreneur.  I have a vision of where I am headed and this small step is going to take me there.

Somedays all I can do is make that small step.  That is all I have to offer myself, my day, and the world around me.  Somedays I feel the wind in my hair as I sprint for a couple meters.  Those days it feels great to be alive.  The goal is to keep up the training and even out the pace.  But, in order to do that, I need to honor where I am and give what I can, pushing myself to keep giving.  When I start to feel the burn building in my physical and metaphorical muscles I will heed my second favorite type of statement from Adriene (as this always comes in a variation), “Feel that what it’s like to be alive.”

Where are you?

P.S. It is not lost on me that as I sat down to write this post I was eating the least beneficial breakfast that I’ve eaten in weeks.  I’ve decided that those were needed as part of my honoring my last couple of not-so-great-days. 😉 Tomorrow’s breakfast will be better.