In the grey

I recall many years ago a conversation with someone who said, "the world is not just black or white, there is grey in-between." That quote came back to me this morning after watching this video:


I feel that one of the many gifts of Yoga is that it teaches how to live in the grey. We think of ourselves as perfect or imperfect, tall or short, good looking or not, male or female, black or white. But in truth, we are both. When I look in the mirror, I often can look with judgement at my face, the fine lines, the freckles, the redness of my nose. And sometimes I look and feel it doesn't look so bad. What makes the difference is not my age or whether I am wearing make up. What makes the difference is how I feel. When I am arrive at the mirror feeling content, peaceful, I know I have beauty that is skin deep. When I arrive feeling sad or lonely, I see the flaws. It is as if a laser beam shines on each flaw.

To be sure, there are societal pressures, and it is our responsibility to determine how much of it we carry. When we eat poorly, sleep poorly, watch TV shows whose plot is to exacerbate the weight of flaws around us, when we sit in a chair and don't get up and move, life seems very depressing. What are we living for anyway? We carry this momentum into each experience and it is the dull fray lens through which we decide what the world looks like. Conversely, when we move the body and get the heart rate up, we play, we eat healthy food, we enjoy nature around us, we see love between two people, we take that momentum into the next experience, viewing it through rose coloured lenses and everything seems brighter.

Even if the experience is the same.