TRUST YOURSELF FIRST

Reading from Tuesday, October 29, 2013 yoga class

From the book, "May I be happy" by Cyndi Lee

"Collette was in the pedicure chair next to me, and her long, wavy, glittering gray hair was so spectacular that I just had to ask her about it.  Isn't it funny that now I am jealous of women who have hair that is more silver than mine?  She told me she's never dyed it.  When she had brown hair she never got compliments but now she always does.  Collette has better things to do with her time than get her hair colored, and anyway she doesn't want the chemicals.

Collette had a confidence that I admired.  Our talk about hair led to appearance led to bodies.  She told me, "Women wax and wane naturally like the moon.  We just haven't figured out that five pounds this way and that is not worthy of drama."

Collette has a sixty-year old musician friend who'd always had flaming red hair--at first naturally and then with assistance.  After some years, inspired by Collette, she finally cut her hair as short as she could stand in order to let the gray grow in.  Two years later, she recorded a new album but when she saw the cover she started crying.

"Why?" asked Collette.  "Is the music no good?"

"No, I just can't believe how old I look."

That same afternoon, Collette's thirteen-year old daughter came home and asked her why the super skinny girls with big boobs are the most popular.  "Well," Collette answered, "it depends on why you want to be popular."  Her voice got quieter as she told me that this was new.  Her daughter and all her friends, suddenly, just in that month, had decided that they are all fat.

Collette went to bed that night with a heavy heart, in between her sixty-year old friend who feels old and her thirteen-year old daughter who feels fat.

I never saw Collette again but I've thought of her so many times.  Just as I want to help my students feel ease in their lives, I had that same impulse to ease her heart, too."

This piece makes me pause.  I have heard so many times, from my teacher, Laura, and the yoga books that I have read and continue to read, that what is inside of us is what matters and that we are perfect in every way. That we must TRUST YOURSELF FIRST.  To see that light that shines out from you... don't cover it up...let it shine!!!