Whole Hearted Living

Eight years or so ago I gave up drinking. It was quite the big deal given I was pretty keen on it at the time. I can’t tell you exactly what it was that made me want to step away from that behaviour except I remember wanting to desperately cease the perpetual suffering that seemed to follow me around like a dark cloud. In short, I became aware that I was lost.

Also around this time (as miracles tend to work) I stumbled across a woman by the name of Brene Brown. She wrote a book called The Gifts of Imperfection, and it became my bible. Seriously, I didn’t go anywhere without this thing. It was my guide and support during those first few years of letting go of my favourite ‘numbing technique’. The term in that book that I fell in love with most was ‘Wholehearted Living’.

When I first came across it I thought it sounded fabulous. I naively assumed that to live wholehearted life meant constant joy, abundance and figgin’ rainbows! It made me think of dating websites where people said, “I live life to the fullest!” with a profile photo of a bungee jump or a person sitting next to a live tiger. I soon began to understand that it really meant to be ALL IN with every aspect of who you are ie. the muck and the mire as well as the sun and the surf. Because to truly live one meant to truly live the other. 

I soon realised that wholehearted living took courage. In our modern times the word courage has been skewed to suggest being heroic but it’s true meaning is, “to tell your story with your whole heart”. 

To tell our story is an act of healing.

This is so difficult in our world today because what is praised is the act of seemingly having all our shit together. And we buy into to the lie that everyone else has that – except for us. There’s a pressure to be perfect, shame and fear-free, and eternally happy. It’s cleverly designed bullshit. We go to extraordinary efforts to fit in and often at the detriment of our authentic thoughts and feelings; our honest human experiences.  

Yoga was a huge player in helping me find my way back. A challenging and confronting player. The practice is a map inward towards your whole self and that often means stopping off and sitting in the darker parts of our psyche. So sunshine and rainbows it ain’t (even if you have the world’s best handstand). We learn through the practice that in truth we are equal expressions of the one powerful source. But what we often meet is what Brene so beautiful puts as, “the things that get in the way”.  I like to call it, “the stuff”. All the mucky big feelings. 

Wholehearted living is not the seductive shortcut. It’s the balls in work and discovery of all of who you are. And what helps me when I’m up against my shortcomings and fears is that there’s really nothing I’ve done or thought or felt that hasn’t been done or thought or felt a gazillion times before. We are not alone in the stuff we are TOGETHER in it.

I tried to write this blog in a few different ways. All of which didn’t involve opening with my drinking past. But then I felt I was living on Hypocrite Island (it’s profoundly unpleasant there – lots of politicians). So I decided to share openly about it because we all have numbing techniques. Whether it’s drinking, gambling, ice-cream, over working, keeping busy… The unfortunate truth is we can’t selectively numb; If we numb the more uncomfortable darker feelings then we numb the good stuff too; the joy, the rapture, the passion and the love. I stopped drinking because through yoga a seed was planted in me that I could have a bigger, more free, more whole existence.

To live with your whole heart doesn’t involve bungee jumping, extreme sports, or sitting close to animals that may rip your face off. But more importantly to sit closer and closer to the stuff inside you that you’d rather not see. And maybe, over time and very gently, sharing them with another. 

Because it’s our vulnerability that makes us whole and deliciously human. And no amount of polished armour is a beautiful as that.

Yours in Yoga
Aimee xx