worth

Ever stop and wonder how you got to understand value? Value of things, opportunity, people, relationships, experiences, good times, bad times, hard times. How did you come to your individualized understanding of value? This is one of those nature or nurture questions, so if you hate those types you may not love where I am going with this thought process. Because I might not even answer the question.

I hold relationships and opportunity at the highest rankings of my value chart. That hardly scratches the surface of the topic though. What type of relationships? To what extent? How do I weigh the value of a platonic relationship verses a mentor relationship? Simple, to me anyway, I understand a person at their core and if they are good all the way down to their core shown through words, actions, plans, etc then I will fight for that relationship. If at their core they are hollow, I may refuse to believe it and still chase after the glimpse of what I saw in hopes that it reflects their core at a deeper level, but at some point I stop holding onto the glimmer I once saw because a person will repeatedly show you who they are. Yet it is up to you to believe them.

I finally got back into a Hatha class today with the friendliest of instructors. I was thrilled to be there. With the falling onto my knee a couple weeks ago then the plague-like summer illness this last week I really felt the pain of only doing minimalist yoga routines (even though it was all my body could handle). The instructor starts of with her warm "hey friends" welcome. Class is full. I wave to a woman who I met when her and her husband were testing out the studio weeks ago, and I recognize five ish other ladies in the class. It's funny, another yogi and I were talking yesterday about how you get used to seeing the same people in specific time slots. It's like a community, an unspoken bond.

We flowed right into some tough poses. Not tough like advanced, tough like awkward. We sat in hero pose, for those non-yogi speakers its knees under you booty on your heels basically, hands resting on thighs. Then, we tucked our toes under so that almost all our body weight was resting on our toes. When is the last time you stretched your toes?? She asked us, we chuckled but I could tell that the women around me were definitely feelings this as much as I was. Needless to say, was a lot. Our instructor speaks about focusing in on those awkward spaces of our bodies that do not get a lot of attention. That they need our focus and love just as much as say stretching your lower back. Think about it, your toes are on your feet that are the body part that carries you all day. Of course they need stretching. Obviously. So why don't we place energy on taking care of them? How did we get so geared into ignoring their needs?

She makes a good point. The point swiftly translates into our lives and the worth that we place on the factors of our day to day being. In relationships, you must pay attention to the awkward things - the tough and sometimes frustrating topics that would be so much easier to just skate by, but would hurt the relationship in the long run. If you place value in the relationship, you have to be willing to do the work even in the awkward times.

I wonder if it has to do with this desire to project the perfect image. Everyone talks about this, but teenagers and even adults live their days posting specific ideas, videos, images, graphics in order to keep up an identity they want the world to see them as being. It's obsessive and manipulative to the point that it becomes normalized to interact only to maintain the cover story your telling the world.

So back to value. Does it all circle back to the value we give ourselves? Because if we understand how we are all gifted and uniquely created for a purpose, then we wouldn't need to place value in anything but serving that purpose which would enable us to want genuine relationships not for the high number of likes, but for the feeling you get when you live in your calling and you know you are doing the act you were designed to do.

Today, Hatha reminded me that awkward is one of the best parts of life. It's the least restricting. It expects failure. But it also expects effort, the ability to try. Your worth is up to you.