It may be time for a spit-wash!

This past week, I once again won Mom of the Year (sarcastic, I assure you).  As I sat in my PJ’s bumming out with sad music, my mind started ticking through my year and noticing a definite trend: mediocracy.   Sigh.  

They may not have been able to find the perfect mood mix on Spotify, but yoga philosophers of old certainly understood these moments of feeling flawed.  They called it avidya.  These moments where we hear our inner critic picking away at our wholeness.  These evenings we go to bed feeling less-than.  

But when we are in these moments of avidya, what if we try a different image?  Instead of picturing ourselves as chipped and inadequate, yoga philosophy gently urges us to picture ourselves as a little dulled, a bit dusty, a little sooty from some recent fires.  Our uniquely shiny self is under there, still a perfectly whole gem.  We’re just a little faint at the moment. 

One benefit of using this image is that dust is temporary.  It’s here and it’s on you, but it isn’t you. The dust and soot is just the remnants of a decision, or habit, or pattern that is currently dulling us a bit.  We don’t have to fear turning on the light and revealing our cracked self, because that’s not what the light reveals.  The light simply reveals the dust in the air, the dust that has settled on your perfectly whole self.     

And there is a way to spit-wash!  Mental health practices like prayer, meditation, yoga, counseling… exist to help us turn on the light and blow off the soot.  They help us until we don’t need the light anymore, because our own internal light starts shining through again.  (Until the next time that shit settles and we once again get a little dull and dusty.)    

So next time you are in a moment of avidya, try self-compassion instead of self-criticism.  Turn on the light and see that dust! See your perfectly, uniquely whole self underneath. And see yourself as worthy of a good spit-wash.   

Until next time,

Laura