One of the most frequent questions I get is where my inspiration comes from. It might surprise you to learn I don’t follow that many yoga accounts - and that’s because I find that I focus too much on what they’re doing and I get this weird internal dialogue that suggests that because they’re doing x, y or z, that must mean that I’m not living up to my fullest potential. It’s weird and gross, and one day I’ll work on that, but until then, I don’t follow many other yoga people.
The other day, I saw a friend’s post about just struggling with yoga and branding and Instagram in general and I gave her a quick call to chat about it all, because I know how it can be to start to get down on yourself when you see so many other people living their best lives on the ‘gram. I essentially just said that what other people do does not negate our own worthiness, and that sometimes I’m inclined to share my own yoga practice, and most of the time, what’s mine is mine. I also mentioned that we all cope differently, and some people’s response is to dive into more and more work and so they wind up churning out more and more content, which may seem aspirational, but really it’s just someone who is really hurting, coping in the best way they know how. Others of us cope by laying in bed for days on end bingeing Netflix. The thing is - this is the weirdest time, being in the middle of this pandemic. We are all doing the best we can with what we have, and if there’s any sort of self-doubt or you find yourself taking a trip to negative town with your thoughts, I urge you to pull over and stop right there. Give yourself a break, and take the pressure off.
My suggestion? Figure out what you want to do, and how you want to feel, and set small, attainable goals each week to slowly get yourself to where you want to be. Take an inventory of your energy level, mental health, and all that’s on your plate and ask yourself if your goals align with all the rest of what you’ve got going on.
For example, I have friends who have full time jobs and are working harder than ever now, but still want to be posting and working for their wellness side hustle and they feel like they’re letting themselves down because they can’t do #allthethings.
I have other friends who are completely out of work but they want to channel all the energy they have into their side hustle and they’re diving in, full steam ahead.
I have other friends who are out of work but also have no energy, and they’re sitting on the couch watching tv.
All of this is okay. Not one of us is better than the other - this is what coping looks like on different people. The psychological effect of this pandemic can’t be ignored. We’ve just got to give ourselves permission to do whatever it is we need to do in order to just be okay.
Anyway, those are my two cents about all of this. Ultimately, go easy on yourself.
Bringing the conversation back to social media, I shared a few weeks ago why I joined TikTok, and so I thought it’d be relevant to talk about a few of the Instagram accounts I appreciate. The following five accounts are some of the ones I truly check frequently because the content just makes me happy.
