I'm a HUGE Mase fan - in fact, this song is playing in the background as I type (which is why the title of this post is aptly named). "Breathe, stretch, shake - let it go" is exactly what I do in yoga and coincidentally, what I do strive to do in life. But in life, it's not as easy to shake shit off and let it go. It's tough to adopt the "5 year rule" - where if it won't matter in 5 years, then we ought to just let it go. How will we know what will and what will not matter in 5 years? How do we decipher the significance of events in the present? How can we just "let shit go" in our lives as easily as we can "let shit go" in our yoga practice?
I've thought long and hard about this and while I do think there's some value in the "5 year rule", I don't think that I'm laissez-faire enough to wholly embrace it. I'm a Type-A personality. I ask a lot of questions. I need to know where I'm going, when I'm going to get there, how I'm going to get there, and I hate not being in control of my life. I'm very ambitious, very self-critical, very much in a race against the clock, and before I started my yoga journey, I'd be the type to overreact at every little thing and had maaad anger issues (I was a treat to be around). While my yoga practice has calmed me down a lot and has taught me that I cannot always be in control of every single situation that I find myself in, I still struggle with my ability to let things go.
Some things are easier to let go of than others, of course; whereas, other things (and/or people) tend to be a bit more difficult, especially when you have attachment issues to ideas and pictures of how things were supposed to be, etched in your brain. This is a story of how I knew that I completely let go of my first (and only) big relationship. Unsurprisingly, yoga played a big role in that letting go process.
It's a little ironic that I came to fall in love with yoga to fall out of love with him. See, he worked for Lululemon, which is the brand one automatically associates with yoga. I didn't regularly practice yoga when I was living in BC, though I'm sure everyone thought I did because I was always decked out in all lulu everything (which I still kinda am and am in desperate need of work clothes). I always had the latest and most exclusive lulu tights, bags, jackets - you name it. I think back now and like, what a waste that was - I lived in yoga clothes and I lived in BC - the biggest freaking yoga obsessed province in Canada and I hardly ever practiced. But whatever, shit happens for a reason and you just gotta trust the timing of your life - the irony of it all is just kind of ridiculous (as are most things that happen to me, tbqh).
Anyway, throughout my year of self-discovery, self-renewal, and I guess, self-awareness, I reset my priorities. In resetting my priorities, my Type-A personality ensured that I showed up on my mat very regularly, which again, allowed me to carve out the time to show up for myself. I did whatever made me happy (yoga) and whatever brought me joy (yoga). In learning to let go in uncomfortable poses in the Moksha sequence (hands down Warrior 2) after holding them for longer than I'd like (i.e. stop resisting and start softening), I was somehow subconsciously letting go of all the pain, heartache, and hurt caused by the severance of my relationship. I didn't know it at the time, but of course, hindsight is 20/20. Every single time I arrived on my mat, I quieted my thoughts and focused my attention with magnificent precision on stretching my body into positions that permitted and encouraged growth. Every deep breath I took was an opportunity to inhale the good I created and exhale the bad that had continued to linger. Every time I'd physically shake off a pose, I'd mentally shake off painful memories. And in time, I eventually came to let all that shit go.
There have been a couple of moments earlier this year when I knew that I had completely let that relationship go - being open to the idea of pursuing a new one was a big-time realization. But I think the biggest moment that confirmed those earlier realizations was last week. I had just come back from Ottawa and my summer plans went awry. I was on Instagram following positive vibe accounts (so lame and so basic, but I like reading the positive affirmations so leave me alone) and his girlfriend or whoever she is to him somehow popped up in "accounts you may know" or whatever tf it actually says (gotta love social media). So, I clicked on her profile and she had a private account (lame), but saw the words "Mommy to be💞" in her bio. And I immediately burst into a fit of giggles and screenshotted (another word I made up, haay Shakespeare) that shit and immediately sent it to my BFF extraordinaire, MB.
Lol. I could not believe my life. Honestly, if it wasn't such a freaking tragedy at that moment with everything else going wrong, I would have found that situation even funnier. Like here I am, just getting home from finishing my first year of law school, supposed to be in a happy and celebratory and triumphant mood, but am instead all upset and heartbroken because my summer wasn't going as planned - AND THEN finding out that my ex and the girl he left me for are having a freaking baby together, like whatttttt?! Are you fucking kidding me right now!? Like what else could possibly go wrong to further sour this moment of supposed bliss from finishing 1L? Lol anyway, upon receiving that screenshot, MB called me and verbalized my initial "wtf" reaction and quickly asked me if I was okay. I started laughing even more, which confused her, but then she started laughing because when one of us giggles, the other one automatically has to start giggling too (that's what real best friends do, btw) and asked why we were laughing. I told her that we're laughing because this entire freaking situation was just so fucking stupid! Literally, everything about the series of events of my life until that moment was just so ridiculous that it was straight up comical. Neither of us could believe how unfortunate my love life was at that time. And also, I'm sorry, but who tf puts "Mommy to be" in their IG bio? Like, whattt? Come on Eileen, that's insane and also, I hate private IG accounts. Like don't put that in your bio if I can't see your baby bump progress. Lol. Jk. Sort of/not really.
K, after that, we had a real discussion about how I felt about this news. And truthfully, I really didn't care. She told me to call her if I decided that I did care later on that night or tomorrow because she (and everyone else I later sent that screenshot to) had thought that the news hadn't really hit me. Everyone assumed that I'd be super upset about learning that my ex and his whatever person was having a baby and all told me, "you're so much better off" ..............
Well, like, duhh!!! No shit I'm better off!!!! That could have been/would have been me if things hadn't ended when they did. I would have been 26 (or younger) and pregnant and what the hell would I even do with a baby? I sure as hell wouldn't have pursued my dream of law school and even if I had, wtf am I going to do with a baby in law school?! I can barely look after my tiny ass succulent (which I'm sure is dead by now) and my own affairs in law school, let alone an infant - that's just insane. I mean, one of my best friends is my age and has a beautiful baby girl named Harper (all of you should check our her dope mommy blog here) and is the absolute best mother, ever. So, obviously, you can be a young mom and still kill it at life. I just know that I would never be able to balance a baby and my dream of becoming a lawyer at the same time. Like what would I even do with the baby - not just while I'm in class, but also at home? Like could I use it as a book-end? Or like, a paper weight? What does it do when I'm reading or doing work or having a scotch at the end of a long day? So many questions that need not be answered and also clearly demonstrate that I am not at all prepared to have a child in the near future. Or honestly, even in the distant future, who knows.
So yeah, seeing "Mommy to be" solidified and confirmed my earlier realizations that I had hundo p, without any uncertainty, let go of that relationship. As surprised as I was to see that, I was (and am) actually extremely happy for the two them. Good for them for finding each other (though at a questionable, overlapping time involving me), for figuring out their shit together, and for having a baby together. That's huge and that's something that should absolutely be celebrated!!! I feel like me being able to be this genuinely happy for them is my sign of clarity that I had been able to forgive them and let them go, which is unquestionably something that would not have happened, had it not been for yoga.
Yoga taught me how to let shit go and showed me all of the good that can happen when I let shit go. I became content, lighter, less type-A and that allowed me to literally transform my hurt into happiness. By breathing, stretching, and shaking, I was able to let all of it go and that's the story of how yoga (and Mase) facilitated my personal triumph of "getting over" that big relationship.
P.S. If either of you are reading this blog, congratulations on your baby!! I'm thankful it's not me!!
