“this work has never been done alone”

“This work has never been done alone”

• is a sentence I say often. I say it at the end of classes when I’m asking students to internally thank other people for showing up for themselves on the mat and the fact they all practiced together. I also say it often to myself when I’m reaching out for help.

I find it wild that we live in such an individualistic culture, so self-everything. Self love, self care, self this and self that… yet the very explanation of a human being through the lens of neuroscience is that we are defined as human by the ability to maintain relationships with others.

Our first relationships were to our parents or caretakers and any wounding coming from those relationships are healed through…. Relationships!

I have been reminded of that very recently. Multiple times. It’s very humbling. Precisely because of the cultural conditioning of western society.

I was watching an interview with Stan Tatkin who wrote the book “Wired for love” and felt humbled many times through the interview…

Feeling strongly the cosmic joke… the healing of shame through vulnerability, the healing of trust issues through vulnerability and trusting, etc…

Every time I am hearing about topics such as co-regulation, our nature of relating to others and such there comes the other side… The hip and trendy words that have been demonised and shameful such as codependency and people pleasing… and often we run to the other extreme to avoid them and forget that there are devotional states and sacrifices and there is also one of the most beautiful human qualities : kindness.
I often sit with these differences and try to discern and make it clear to myself : is this codependency or am I within my boundaries? Is this people pleasing or is it kindness?

And what often amazes me is the fear of stepping into some of the “demonised” states of being. Who demonised them? Me. They are outside of the spectrum that says: perfect. Or healed. In other words, it says: shameful.

And on days when I remember, I laugh. I laugh at all the boxes we can put ourselves to and the judgments and fears we have around them.

And on days when I remember, I add curiosity to the laughter and allow curiosity to win over fear. Let’s lean to the edge of devotion and see later if it was codependency or if I learned more about love. Let’s lean to the edge of kindness and see later if it was still some good old people pleasing. And if so… can I be kind to myself then?