Meaningful growth: a slow burn

As humans, we’re quick to judge. Our fast paced world seems to demand it with all the information it presents to us. We feel the pushing from all sides to move quickly, own the next cool thing, post every day and be available all the time. 

When I say we’re quick to judge, I mean that we are quick to judge the value of something or someone. The coolness of it, how good it might make us look, or how we feel when we measure ourselves up against the next person and their sparkly exterior and content. 

It’s possible that this isn’t the best use of our emotional energy.

Not all judgment is bad, and it's a necessary part of life to use our ability to determine the worth of something, but we have to be deliberate to stay engaged in a healthy kind of judgement. 

For example, we might all practice judging what is worth our valuable time (reading vs scrolling, continuing to say yes to every project that pops into our email, etc.). 

When we practice, too, we have to judge in a productive way what is and isn’t working. We run into trouble when we make that judgement personal. “I can’t believe I missed that high note again - I’m so terrible, I never make it” is not a productive judgement, but how often do we have thoughts like that in the practice room? 

Feeling the need to “measure up” can be motivating, but we have to have a discerning mindset to keep a healthy attitude of competition with ourselves and with others. 

Being too focused on judging (whether it’s our worth against others, our value based on one practice session, or focusing on getting things done quickly just to achieve more) can derail our progress before we even realize it by creating an unsustainable pace and expectation for the speed of our growth and development. 

The more we can learn to “judge” in a healthy way and tune in to our own goals and timelines the better our quality of life will be.

It’s so easy to forget these things as we’re bombarded by work, social media and every day life. Slowing down feels like going the wrong way in traffic. 

One of the most beneficial parts of deciding to complete my 200 hour yoga teacher training has been the chance to be a student again and be immersed in self study as an adult with more life experiences.

If you’ve ever been a student you’ve experienced the realization that some things cannot be learned overnight, and that there’s usually plenty you don’t know. Hopefully you've also experienced teachers who have guided you through those longer learning processes step by step while helping you stay motivated (not intimidated) by the light that’s way at the end of the tunnel.

All of the lessons I learned about growing in this way as a musician remain applicable, but how often do we forget things we already know? I’d say the answer for most of us, at least for me, is pretty often.

We want instant gratification, instant value, or to pass a quick judgment and move on in so much of life, that I think we come to expect the same things from practicing or developing any skill or expertise. We want to get better yesterday, which leads us to being even more judgmental about ourselves. (“Why is this piece I just started not getting better - I don’t have enough time for this!”)

In yoga teacher training, one of our projects was to take photos of ourselves in a variety of poses at the beginning training and then again at the end of training six months later, writing a reflection about each and about the way we’ve changed after viewing both sets of photos. 

(First of all, ugh. This instantly took me back to undergrad conducting courses and watching videos of myself on the podium that I had to self critique!)

I had hoped to see a difference in my two sets of pictures, but didn’t think much of it besides that I’d rather not need to take so many photos of myself. 

I was shocked when I looked at the pictures. There were only six months between them, during which I didn’t really feel like so much was changing, but it was like looking at a different person. Physically and energetically I had transformed. 

It made me think, if these look so different, what were those six months made up of?

The answer was small consistent and intentional habits.

Daily meditation, focusing on daily routine, a consistent and deliberate yoga practice at least 3-4 days a week, and some serious work on self acceptance. 

I never had a moment of euphoric transformation, or a time when it felt like things just “clicked.” I still haven’t.

Yet, when I look at the photos it appears as though I might have. I see strength, confidence, and flexibility that weren’t there before. I see things that I often notice in others and find myself imagining they must have learned a secret to or just have naturally without needing to work for it. 

Seeing these photos is much the same as recording ourselves regularly in practice. The changes from day to day are so small that we can’t see them, but hindsight is 20/20. During the time between photos, I was practicing with a focus on the actions, not their value or my ability to do them. Without the recording, or in my case the photos, it’s so easy to keep judging ourselves with no regard for the pieces we are setting into motion. 

What I was reminded of by this assignment is that good things take time. 

Putting your nose to the grindstone means that you have to stop looking and hoping for a quick fix. 

It means turning down the volume on those outside voices that tell you there’s a fast way to anything worthwhile. 

As I look back six months feels like a blink, but that wasn’t the case in the moment. There were days I just didn’t want to do things, and I would skip routines I knew were good for me. 

I could have easily sabotaged myself by looking at other people online or in my teacher training and thinking about how their down dog or wheel looked so much better than mine, or thinking that they were so much more self aware and mindful than I was. Sometimes I did that, but in the long run, my willingness to stick out focusing on small daily work for myself outweighed those days with dips in motivation.

I really believe that in order to change and grow we have to listen to ourselves - trust ourselves - and be willing to shut out the noise.

It can be scary to not buy in to the hype of constant sharing, motivation and “easy” self improvement. These things give us an easy out to judge ourselves rather than focus on what we really want and what it will actually take to get there. 

But if we choose to be honest with ourselves, knowing that we won’t make leaps and bounds every day, we won’t have the best photo on Instagram all the time, and every day won’t hold mega career gains we can begin to focus on what matters to us, what we’re grateful for, and what we can do to help ourselves grow. 

Go inside and listen to yourself - what are your goals? Not the big huge ones, the little ones that are really tough to turn into habits that you know will improve your life. 

Choose those small habits that might not ever be noticed by anyone else and invest in yourself by cultivating them.

And then, make sure you check back in every once in a while. You might be shocked at how much you’ve grown.