I was watching someone grimace in a Prayer Twist last night and I suggested that maybe she didn’t need to hook her elbow *over* her thigh, maybe touching the inside of her thigh was enough, or putting a hand on the floor so the twist wasn’t so intense.

So often we’re told that giving 110% is a really good thing. It shows we’re committed and tough and happy. It proves we’re happy to overextend ourselves for the ’cause’ whatever it is. But in yoga that’s not the case. I tell classes that they should look at giving a solid 85% effort. It’s important to leave a little space to be comfortable and hang out. It’s about making an effort without efforting and straining. It’s about feeling sensation without overwhelming yourself with discomfort. It’s about finding the sweet spot in every pose. And finding the sweet spot requires an attitude of accepting ourselves and our body in this moment. It might be different tomorrow, sure. It might be “better” and it might not. It simply doesn’t matter.

It reminds me of something I read in Pema Chodron’s little pocket book called Awakening Loving-Kindness

The innocent mistake that keeps us in our own …shutdownness is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead, there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy. That is the innocent, naive misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.