Finding My Silver Lining - Part 2

...Cont. from Part 1

Fast forward about a year. I was knee-deep in wedding magazines, living in an apartment that looked as if I had the contents of an entire Hobby Lobby strewn across my living room floor. I’d found some solace in wedding planning, deciding that I surely could make this event work out the way I envisioned. And naturally, I planned. And planned. And planned the heck out of this thing. I had binders and books and websites dedicated to my dream wedding. I filled the entire scope of my consciousness with swatches, pictures and sketches to form a road map for the “best day of my life.”

But of course, nothing ever turns out the way we plan, and I would eventually come to finally grasp that idea.

Part of my wedding plan was to get in shape. Over my year of depression, I had lost so much of my self-worth and identity and had stopped taking care of myself. I wanted get back on track so that I could be the most perfect bride I could be. During this fitness journey, I stumbled upon yoga. It was great for calming my nerves and relieving my mounting stress, and it happened to provide a fantastic workout as well. By the wedding, I had only been practicing for a few months, but something more than muscle had already begun to develop inside of me as I checked my fitness regimen off of my to-do list. 

Yoga had introduced me to a stronger version of myself, and it had revealed the bliss that comes with letting go. There’s something miraculous that happens when you stand on a mat day in and day out, clearing your mind enough to see through the fog that our overactive, overachieving, overly competitive culture puts us in. You begin to see the way your body progresses and the strength you find when you just let go and breathe. I had to let go of my need to be the best because I couldn’t be the best. Yoga is a lifelong journey of progression and self-inquiry, and the point is to check in with yourself and be the best you can be right here, right now. It's personal. It's raw. It challenges you to look within yourself and face the messy, hard things you have buried down deep. It makes people break down. And it's through these breakdowns that we discover our true identities, potential and power. It's beautiful, but it's not easy. 

This meant I had to accept my body where it was and thank myself for the tiny accomplishments I made each day. I had to express gratitude and acceptance for my body and myself, regardless of my imperfections. Perhaps even gratitude FOR my imperfections. I had no vision for where I would be a week in the future, much less a year in the future, in my yoga practice. But as I took in the words “the light in me honors the light in you” each day, I found myself again. I found a bigger purpose than I could ever plan for myself. I found beauty and grace and mercy and strength in ways I would have never thought I could. I came to love myself with an intense, passionate, unconditional love. 

Turns out 24 really was the year everything started to come together for me. I guess I'm not such a failure after all. I just had to endure that year's breakdown to discover the beauty and wonder that existed beyond it, to do some reexamining of myself and life's complexities to see the silver lining in the midst of the shadows.

For me, yoga was a journey of miraculous release. It allowed me to release my need to be in control and opened my eyes to the revelation that everything happens for a reason. Every dark cloud I had encountered had led to something beautiful. But it wasn’t until I was broken that I could allow myself to be released into the reckless abandon that enabled me to finally open my eyes and see that.

We are all beautiful, miraculous beings, and even in our misfortunes, there is a silver lining—a tiny miracle—to be found. You just have to look for it, and sometimes you have to wait for a long time before that darkness starts to part for you to begin to see it. But LIFE GOES ON. It does get better. And it’s hard to walk that silver line all the time, to keep looking for the good. But you have to. Because life itself is a silver lining. It is a miracle in and of itself, and there are miracles happening all around us all of the time. But sometimes it’s hard to see the beauty before us because our nature is to see the dark before we see the light, to live life blindly and upside-down, drowning in the shadows that so easily envelop us. But beauty and light is out there all the time, everywhere, and that’s what this blog is about: finding the silver linings in life and celebrating them to help us stay out of the shadows.

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Read Part 1