Looking back at this photo from the Summer, I’ll be completely honest with you: my very first instinct was to edit it.
Maybe smooth out the grimace from my slight fear of heights. Wish I had kicked my leg a fraction higher or flown just a little bit freer in the posture.
In other words: I wanted to control it. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to manage the picture so it looked like some pristine, idealized version of what I thought “perfection” should look like.
And then I caught myself.
I took a breath, stepped back, and remembered what this practice is actually about. Why on earth would I hide the real magic? Why trade raw, unfiltered life for a polished illusion?
This Day on Mount Pilatus
It was a beautiful, wild, whirlwind adventure. A train, a cogwheel rail, climbing through the mountain air, practicing yoga in the crisp alpine wind, sharing a wonderful lunch, riding the gondola, and taking the bus back down. Every single second of it was an absolute gift.
And yet, my mind still tried to grab the steering wheel and say: “Make it look better. Make it look smoother.”
That’s the human condition. When we face our edges—whether it’s a physical edge like a height that makes us grimace, or an internal edge like accepting our bodies exactly as they are right now—our natural reaction is to resist. We want to brace, hide, or alter reality.
Equanimity isn’t standing on top of a mountain feeling zero fear and looking flawless. Equanimity is standing on top of that mountain, feeling the fear, feeling the messiness, enjoying the heavy lunch, looking at the wobble—and choosing to stay fully present and wide open anyway.
Root to Rise in Your Own Life
When you give up trying to manage reality and instead embrace the perfectly imperfect truth of where you are, something incredible happens: you open up space for pure joy.
My heart (and my belly!) is so incredibly full today. Just pure, unadulterated gratitude for this wild, wonderful journey.
So here is my invitation to you today, on or off your mat:
- Catch yourself in the edit. Notice where you are trying to alter, control, or smooth over your life instead of just living it.
- Drop the struggle. Give up the story of how you think you should look, how high you should kick, or where you should be.
- Say YES to what is. Choose presence over perfection. Embrace the grimace, the laughter, the wobbles, and the second helpings.
Life isn’t happening in the airbrushed moments. It’s happening right now, in all its messy, glorious, breathtaking detail. Step up to your edge, root down into the present moment, and let yourself fly.
