A teacher of mine, Thomas Huebl, came up with this beautiful image: learning to be fully human requires that we practice the asana of rejection. The minute I heard the words, I knew this was my next assignment from the universe: to practice the asana, the yoga pose, of rejection, and find a way to enjoy it. To stop designing my life so that I can avoid the experience of being rejected, and to become deeply interested in it instead.
It sounded impossible to me, and that’s how I knew it was a true assignment from the universe. Lately, all of these cosmic pieces of homework have felt impossible in the very moment they were delivered. It’s like having one of those owls in the Harry Potter books swoop through your window and drop a magic letter in your lap. How glorious, how fortunate, to receive a letter from one of those owls! Except for one thing: the glory lies in the fact that the message is a little challenging.
Basically it reads like this: “You are so busted Shayla. You think you’ve been practicing so hard and so long, but you still haven’t learned how to get right down into the asana of rejection. Your downward dog and your cobra, your bow and your camel and your bridge are all coming along great. But you haven’t even really started with your rejection asana. In fact, it’s looking pretty shaky. You need to find a new foundation for that posture, so you can learn how to breathe there, how to ground, how to stay inside that asana for a while. You know how it works Shayla. If you want to master this asana, you need to learn how to inhabit it, instead of shrivelling up inside, whenever it’s time to practice it. ”
Ah yes, I get the picture now. A whole new world opens up for me when I stop avoiding this asana, this experience of being rejected. I have to hide so much, and play so small, and be so careful, when I am running away from this kind of pain.
I was a yoga teacher for many years, and I noticed such an interesting thing, over and over again. Everybody has some poses they enjoy, even if they are quite challenging, even if they are a bit painful. Somehow, in the poses we feel good in, even the pain and discomfort are okay. It’s a good pain, a discomfort we can lean into, and open to, and permeate with our breath. That’s the fun part of yoga. If you practice for a while, you discover that the body is very intelligent-it naturally avoids the poses you need to practice the most. These are the poses you don’t like, the poses that challenge your rigid structures, or the places where you are weak. In those poses, even the tiniest bit of pain or discomfort feels unbearable. You don’t know how to stay there, how to open up inside that structure, how to find your willingness, your presence, your breath.
I would often ask my students to describe to me the difference between the pain that felt good and the pain they didn’t want to go near. It was hard for them to put their finger on what was happening with these two experiences. All they could say is, “When I feel that stretch, I just want to run away. I don’t want to feel those sensations, those feelings. And when I am inside the stretch I love, I just want to go deeper into it.”
That’s what the universe so kindly revealed to me about the Asana of Rejection: it’s time to go deeper into it. I have been rigorously avoiding this pose, but only for my whole life. Happily, I’m not dead yet, so I still have a chance to practice it, to even consider the possibility of enjoying it, of leaning right into it, and opening to the juicy, edgy sensations and feelings of being rejected.
How will I accomplish this? I don’t know yet. I surely don’t intend to do this alone. I will be asking for help in the invisible and in the human realms. Because it’s suddenly apparent that life often brings us the experience of rejection. We are going to be criticized as well as praised. We are going to be uncared for, as well as deeply loved, seen, and acknowledged. Sometimes it hurts a lot, sometimes it doesn’t. It hurts when I forget that those voices of rejection are me! If those voices are not going on inside my head, I won’t mind what anyone says about me. I’ll hear their words, maybe their ‘no’ and I’ll be fine.
We have not been born into a universe where all we will ever hear, if we are smart enough, or good enough, or enlightened enough is ‘yes, you are wonderful.’ ‘No’ is just as essential to our human existence as ‘yes’.
I know I am not alone here. It’s clear I’m not the only one who has been avoiding the Asana of Rejection. It’s actually a universal asana, but I’ll just start with myself. I’ll get up each morning and remember that if I want to live fully, if I want to open my heart to life, I better get ready to hear the ‘no’, respect the rejection, and maybe grow one day, into loving it all as myself.
with love,
Shayla
photo credit: Oleg Oprisco, www.oprisco.com
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Wow! This was very disappointing. Just kidding; couldn’t help myself. I’m glad I have the rest of my life to embody this, too. Ouch. Hmm. Maybe no ouch. Sometimes I do say to myself “you know, some people would let that slide or bounce right off. There are other options.” I have the feeling that for my relationship to grow, we both are going to need to embody our no’s a bit more from time to time, to explore more of the dusty corners wherein lie the seeds of liberation. I’d send you love and hugs but I know you need to practice.
I also need practice with this asana of rejection. We all do, as you say , it is universal. Thank you for opening my mind to the possibility of, possibly one day, loving it, as I l=earn to more and more deeply love myself…then the story of my unworthiness, brokenness, not enoughness, will not begin inside when rejection of any kind, comes. Thank you Shayla, as always for helping me through this life as you do. One day I would love to speak with you in person. I bless the day that you came into my life.Ingrid
Hajlulelah! I needed this-you’re my savior.
one year ago
my hippocampus sent an erratic message to
the entire body that I live in
I was shaken to the core
gone from the usual level of awareness for 2 days
awakened to a fully different No
the understanding of what I do has changed
same road
different path
This is so beautifully put, and impeccably timed. Thank you Shayla, I think there is a lot for us to explore in this very painful asana that will only help deepen our understanding of ourselves and others. ❤️
Thank you, Shayla, for this framing. I too am being called to this asana — by life and my inner experiences, that I notice how and why I am constantly rejecting myself. One of my personal favourite asanas is ” I’m OK” but my practice is very shaky.
of all things the notion ‘being-under-the-control-of-others’ presented itself this morning …including a resolute memory of my relationship with Divinity. How does this relate to your article … all I can say is that the experience just got ””framed”’.
Yes Sheila … a living truth exposed itself. Thank you.
Charon
Shayla, this is totally fantastic and coming at an amazing time for me and really reminds me how totally grateful I am to know you
I am grateful to the person who actually has rejected me. I thank her for the opportunity to practice being rejected while loving myself and her. It has taken a little while and some discomfort to get here and now, how released it feels. Thank you, dear Shayla, for your ongoing heartfelt wisdom.
Hi Shayla I have been working deeply with rejection all summer. Esther Harding, who worked with Carl Jung in her research on the experience of Eros, or soul, in the modern world, considers a consciously held rejection to be an opportunity to experience the depth of the soul’s longings, and therefore its potential. I have found this to be a very helpful guide, a reminder of the fruit of sticking with these experiences rather than pushing them into anger or answering them with rejection the other direction. It has not been an easy summer, but my heart now has a little more grace, a little more compassion, than it did in the spring. Thank you for your efforts, Shayla!
Thought it wo’lundt to give it a shot. I was right.
I have just been rejected. Nothing huge in itself. Though the experience snowballs in my mind until I am questioning all that I do and the premise upon which all this is based. Downer. First, I react – against the bearer of the news, against the community which seems not to be supporting me, and against myself for being so foolish (or egoically driven) to believe I have something of value.
Then I sat. Often I just spin .. and spin and spin, weaving wild tales in an effort to figure my way out. These moments – these erratic, chaotic moments inside – are often the richest and most fertile of moments to go inside. So I sat. Good.
And what I came to is that the rejection was very much a ‘message’ telling me that the situation didn’t fit. That working with this group in this form isn’t in alignment. And then all the other ideas game storming through the gates – the one’s about writing, and staying true to how I ‘see’.
Really lovely, the whole experience. And then, of course, I come across this writing of yours once again. Ahah!
Not so bad after all, eh?
The asana of rejection, what is it, exactly? When someone else doesn’t like what I offer, or disses something about me? That hurts for sure, but what’s worse is when I reject myself, hide parts of myself, am ashamed of myself, and reject the gifts and offerings I have for the world… That’s a place where I want to work!