I read somewhere, “you’re perfect as you are” and just about coughed up my lunch.  Most days I feel like that’s as far from the truth as I can imagine. 

Let’s take my hip for example.  I’ve been having issues with it for years, it’s what got me into yoga in the first place.  And now I need to be pretty gentle with it or it flairs up bad.  Like have trouble walking when I get out of bed kinda bad.  Lately it’s been extra cranky from roaming around Montreal for hours in flipflops (I guess I’m *not* 18 anymore, lookit that). 

Anyhoo, my response is to try to ignore it and either wish I didn’t have hip issues or feel bummed out because I clearly do.  I pretend it’s not starting to bug me.  It starts as discomfort for a couple days and then gets tight and painful.  It’s like having rocks in my left butt cheek.  Painful rocks.  Then I go into high “fix” gear to work on wrestling it back to normal again. 

But what i’m slowly realizing is that this is an opportunity to learn to chill on the resisting and wishing-things-were-different front.  I need to just baby my hip at the discomfort stage and get on with it. 

Accept it for starters.  From there, learn to treat myself with more TLC.  Notice that this is the perfect motivator to do yoga *every* morning - something I haven’t been able to manage so far. 

And the fact that I have the opportunity to learn these lessons is pretty cool.  I’m learning them slowly so that they can really sink in and take effect ;-) .  My cranky hip is a great teacher.  It’s been teaching me all kinds of things that I’ve been waiting to learn. And that means I’m exactly where I need to be.  And that’s perfection, just as it is.