Weakness.

Often in yoga class, the instructor will invite you to set an intention for your practice. Most commonly, I choose balance, strength or peace. I love these intentions. They truly help ground my practice, keep me focused and allow me get more than just a physical experience. Today however, I chose weakness. 

I have always valued strength.  I recognize the strength in others and try to honor it. We all have battles that we feel we have won, and even when we feel we have lost, our strength builds. To me, that in itself is a type of win. I pride myself on my inner and outer strength. I work continuously with my body and my mind to build up and deepen my strength. This leads me to push myself, often to great heights. This leads me to achieve my dreams. This leads me to inversions and arm balanced I didn't even know were possible. But it also leads me to pain, sometimes without me even realizing it.

I realized today, that while I do not think I have overvalued strength, I have most certainly undervalued weakness. I don't mean weakness than we turn into strength. Not exactly, anyway. Weakness that allows us to say, "Stop." There is great power in actively choosing to stop, whether it's during an asana, saying goodbye, or anything else. I focused my practice on weakness, because I recognized that I needed to allow my body and mind to be weak. I needed permission to ease up. I needed to not only recognize my weakness, but I needed to embrace it. That is where the learning happens. 

I've always viewed weakness and strength as antonyms. Surely the dictionary will concur. But what if we change how we view weakness? Rather than something that needs to be fixed or built upon, why not see it as an opportunity to embrace where we are in that specific moment? That's when I realized, it takes great strength, to name your weaknesses, but it takes even more awareness. We all have them. For some they serve as motivators, others they're destroyers. But when I started to think of weakness as an asset, as a deeper form of awareness than I had previously held, that's when I could truly submerge myself into my practice, both physically and mentally. 

Try setting an intention of weakness. I'd love to hear how it goes.