“Rather than try to be better at yoga today, can you just be?” That was the question my yoga teacher recently asked at the beginning of class.

As I was pondering her question, I thought, “Oh, I can do that. I write and speak about surrender and acceptance all the time.”

About half-way through class, the teacher took us through a rather challenging pose that involves balancing your whole body on your arms. While I didn’t achieve the “full expression of the pose” (I never have), I did go the furthest into the pose than I ever had before.

As I stood up on my mat, I thought to myself, “Susan, you’re going to get better at that pose. One day you’re going to nail that pose.” Just as that thought passed, the teacher looked at all of us and said, “Now, some of you may have just been thinking, “I’m going to get better at that pose.” I laughed out loud in full admission. The teacher then said, “But rather than wanting to be better in a pose, can you just be in a pose? Can you not want or need what happens in a pose to be different?”

This concept of just being is simply not how most of us humans roll. We spend  much of our time trying to be better at things. However, in that space between where we are and where we want to be, we can wind up carrying around feelings of unworthiness, guilt, shame, fear, and self-doubt.

Let’s admit it. Trying to be better at something makes us feel like crap most of the time.

So often with trying to be better, we set up ourselves up for that feeling of failure because we’re not able to do something we should be able to do.

Being better at something doesn’t make us better people. Being better at something just means we’ve managed to meet our own expectations. And that match between what we expect of ourselves and what we are able to do often makes us feel better.

Ending the habit of wanting to be better isn’t about ending your dreams, desires, or goals. Deciding to “just be” is about eliminating the struggle along the journey – the journey being that space between where you are and where you want to be.

To just be means your mind is quiet. Because you fully accept and embrace where you are in your journey, there is no thinking about being better.

The contentment of just being is created by simply being in the present moment of your life rather than grasping for the future.

“Not different” is the mantra I left that class with. With everything I think, do and say, (and with every yoga pose achieved or unachieved), may I just be with it – exactly as it is. 

It goes against much of what you have been taught to think and believe, but could not wanting yourself to be different than you are as you make your way along your journey create that feeling of joy you often place on the other side of being better?