Emotional Artwork

Sierrah tells me to be kind to myself and avoid using personal adjectives like “psychotic.” She’s right. Must we place judgement on our emotions and complete that judgement with a label? Let’s talk about what it’s like to be a little bit of a mess upstairs, because no matter how hard we try to step our personalities into 5” pumps and slap on some cherry red lipstick every day- some days the mascara does run. 

I spent the majority of my social life as “one of the guys.” Even if I absolutely lost my mind in emotion, I was greeted with a pat on the back and a “get over it, Chels.” As one of the guys or any feline brave enough to date one of the guys, then you are constantly told not to be “Crazy.” “But man, every girl is crazy!” I can hear the tenor chorus now. 

Let me tell you what you gain from absorbing a little crazy into your life. A therapist once told me (well, cats out of the bag there) that I didn’t have to apologize for feeling on a deeper level. If I loved more, had more empathy, felt more joy- then at what loss was I? 

The ugly partner in crime that comes with these deeper levels of joyfulness is the deeper levels of fear, pain, anxiety, sadness. 

I’m still going to tell you, that this is ok. The yoga practice teaches us that light and dark is a beautiful balance. And I can tell you that most people that have really explored their yoga mat have at one point in their lives probably thought that they were positively crazy. I love these people. I am these people. 

When you start to recognize that the emotional owners of your mind, body and soul no longer need to own you, then you begin to explore deeper. You start to push the boundaries of length that you might hover in bliss. You look right into the eyes of your comrades and say, “I am crazy in love. I am crazy in curiosity. I am crazy in witnessing beauty and I am crazy in thirst for a higher life.”

The practice at play is to sit with yourself. Sit with yourself and witness the light and the dark. Feel the influence and beauty of your complexities and instead of attaching judgement, observe. Observe the colors of your life as the most beautiful artwork you will ever create. How boring if our artwork all looked the same. How boring if we never knew the difference. How psychotic. :)