Kick Your Own Butt

It's nice when someone else lights a fire under your ass and gets you going. Perhaps you remember a fire-starter from your past-a teacher, a parent, a colleague-who really challenged you to try your hardest. Perhaps you internalized that butt-kicking attitude and now it serves as intrinsic motivation. Personally, I do not have an internalized sense of butt-kicking and it is a challenge for me to go the extra mile. Even though I am grateful for my yoga teachers and yoga friends who challenge me and provide a sort of external disciplinary force, I wish the force came more from within. I think it's starting to, but I've got some work to do!

Hence, I have declared the month of July "Kick Your Own Butt" month and my yoga classes will be unofficially referred to as "Booty Camp" (in the most fun and jocular manner of course). Being your own fire-starter has its advantages. My friend Wikipedia says that intrinsic motivation is "motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on any external pressure". In other words, you start your own fire because you're really into what you're doing no matter what anyone around you is doing or saying. And how do you get to be really into what you're doing? Well, it has to serve some purpose for you. John Friend, founder of Anusara yoga, tells teachers to consistently remind their students (or have them remind themselves) why they're practicing yoga. Why on earth would you want to put your body in the shape of a triangle or stand on one leg and pretend you're a tree? And sure, everyone has a purpose. But what is the highest purpose? What will really get you to do it and also allow you to enjoy it? In Anusara yoga, the highest intention in practicing yoga is to awaken to our own light, the supreme consciousness vibrating with freedom within you. "On our yoga mat we artistically offer our individual light and our unique music with the heartfelt prayer of adding more beauty, love, and goodness to the world" (John Friend). That'll light your fire. I'm kicking my own ass for freedom! And to make my life and the world way more awesome-er! When I approach my practice with this beautiful intention, I am, as my meditation teacher Paul Moller-Ortega says, "naturally and spontaneously motivated to move towards more". The fire burns naturally under your own butt when it is stoked by your own highest intention.

So this month, when I'm starting to feel tired or lazy or like someone has dumped a bucket of cold water on the fire that was once burning, I will ask myself, "Why are you doing this yoga thing anyway?" and then proceed to hold a 5-minute downward facing dog, a 2-minute handstand or do 25 drop-backs. In my classes, I intend to be a fire-starter for my students so that they may awaken to their own highest purpose and start their own fires.

Kick ass y'all! Love, Erin