The Beginning is the End.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” 
― Jim Morrison

Well said, Jim. 

I have been on a bit of a personal revolution this weekend. Identifying my masks, making them tangible and trying them on for size. My ancestors, the version of myself that I became in order to survive and be loved, and a delicious scoop of the Mandy personality...Then I spent some time breaking those ties, rewriting my story and getting tuned in to the free and innocent child I was born to be. 

The revolution is an inside job. 

I woke up feeling kind of raw. There's a reason I wear the mask. It has protected me well from, well...the well of emotions that rise to the surface so easily for me. However, with Passover, the Full Moon and Easter upon me, Freedom and Rebirth are in the air. What must be done to press the reset button and be free? 

For each of us, this may be different, but even in our daily yoga practice, we must be open to new discoveries, our very patterns running through our body's memory. Listening to ourselves becomes the practice. Forget about the mimic. Forget about the should's and the way you used to look, be. feel. True freedom is in the moment. Free of judgements. The ability to choose. I ask myself, am I contorting into the splits, because I have always been able to? Because my father gave me praise for this? Am I avoiding a handstand because of an old injury? Because I am imperfect at inversions? Because I haven't practiced in years? It's time to revise and free ourselves from the old, and reveal the sweet innocent that wants to emerge. Tiny flower bud, reaching towards the sun. 

Today, I open myself. Beginner's Mind. Beginner's Heart. Wondering where these curiosities will take me. Today I reconnect with the childlike spirit that I was born to be. 

Happy Spring!