You simply cannot fail.

"Giving your power away is what hurts you."
"There is nothing more powerful than a woman with an open heart."

Power is our sense of self-worth, it is shakti and shraddha for us Yogis. Not self-esteem, that contrived idea of ourself, rather our self-worth. Self-worth is the faith (shraddha) we have that we are really something special and the spark of living that draws the next breath in and expels the last one, (shakti). For as many years as I can remember, I have believed there is 'a little God in all of us.' This self-worth is this God. It is the innate sense that I must be magical and good; that I must have some divine reason for existing that adds to this amazing world.

I have suffered loss in my life and I cried a good many tears, held on tight with a load of fear. My power seeping away to what I believed the loss meant, not to what my heart knew to be true. I was buying into a story I had told myself about why people leave us. A story about how perhaps I was not good enough. A story handed down to me by classmates who made fun of my skinny body and under developed breasts. A story about who I am with this person, after all, aren't I that person's daughter, sister, student, teacher, mother, partner... who am I if I am not that?

So why would I ignore that God within me and buy into someone else's God, a God that believes you are not worth loving unless you have big breasts? Or a God that doesn't believe I exist without that other person, job, success? Because it is me who believes that others must know more than I do. I am taught that as a toddler learning to stay on solid ground, in sight that the world is scary and I cannot make it without others. I am taught that in a school classroom when a teacher tells me she is right and I am wrong and I must follow her rules. I begin looking for the teacher and protector everywhere. I begin to believe I cannot make it on my own.

It has been through Yoga, a process of learning to listen to my own body in asana, my own mind in meditation, my own breath in pranayama that I have learned I do have an inner teacher, a God within. It has required courage to listen to my inner light, spirit, intuition, you pick the name... and to test my inner power. Following my heart and letting my son speak with love of his new step siblings, to congratulate my ex on his new wife, to watch my family as we confront our own loss and shifting roles. But having faith that I will still breathe no matter what. Sometimes you have to fall down (really hard) to discover just how all powerful you can be. And from this place, your heart can courageously open to the stories we hide behind to feel safe. The rules we create to have some sense of ground and truth. From this place you cannot fail, "you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think."- Christopher Robin.