I have been thinking about birds for a few weeks. I love to watch birds—their flight patterns and the way that they utilize their breath inspire me to consider how I, too, can utilize the resources I have to lift up and off the earth. In fact, the way that birds utilize the force of their exhalation to gain the most lift during flight, conserving energy and lightening their exertion during inhalation, seems much like the efforts of rising upward in an arm balancing pose, or even in a standing balance like Warrior 3.

At first, my thoughts of birds were really just this—considering the ways that our human bodies could apply the principles of bird flight to our asana practice. But like much of what I contemplate for the physical practice, I eventually turned to self-inquiry that led me down a rich and winding path backward to middle school. As my mind turned backward from birds to the awkward 11, 12, 13 year old me, I felt such a sadness settle over me that I wanted to turn away from. Surely, I’d not write about this time. But here I am, writing about that time.

Until 15 years or so ago, I wouldn’t dare let myself contemplate birds or their stunning beauty and grace. Throughout middle school, I was called “bird beak” not because I could fly well or because any of the pubescent boys thought that I was lovely and so were birds, but because my nose is hooked and I didn’t look like anyone else in this small town school and because kids know how to find other kids’ deepest insecurity and really nail it in. I was embarrassed to even look at birds, much less be near one. Even in my twenties, I worked hard to not let people see my profile, for fear they’d see my bird face. And like many women, self-loathing didn’t stop at my face, but traveled downward to the whole of me, so that all I saw were the many ways I was imperfect and ugly, not right at all.

It’s taken me a long time to claim the bird as a symbol of beauty and power and grace, so I don’t write this now from a place of anger or searching for sympathy for that middle school girl I was. I write instead because I know that part of the reason I found yoga was because of those long, agonizing years, divorced from my body entirely, wishing and starving my body away, looking for ways to hide my face, to hide all of me. I spent years living in my mind almost entirely and had no idea what my body needed or how to inhabit this temple of mine. I didn’t begin to discover that until I stepped onto the yoga mat.

The first time I felt myself come home to my body, I cried and cried. I came to my mat as another way to change my imperfect self and what I found instead was a way to step in to re-member the whole of me. I learned to listen to what my body had to tell me in these poses, about how to surrender to lightness and to strength. It was the first time that I ever remember not running away from the stillness required to truly feel my body. It was not easy, and it took time, but because I learned that I could be in a place of pressure and find balance instead of hiding inside myself, I learned that quite often the wisdom that I need lies in my body and in my soul, not in my mind at all. Yoga was the practice that started me on the path to actually moving back into myself, my physical self. The self inquiry this led me to eventually, after many years, helped me to understand and see those middle school kids for who they were—equally lonely and confused and disconnected beings. This is the tragedy of it—not that I was made fun of, but that we’re all hiding in some way and finding ways to cover our own pain, as if that pain should not be felt; as if we aren’t warriors us all, capable of feeling pain and strength equally, available to give and receive grace. Becoming this kind of warrior means knowing it’s not the pain itself that kills us—it’s the turning away from it, refusing the beautiful human-ness of it, that kills us.

Flash forward to now. It seem apropos that this contemplation comes when we are hosting the beautiful Ramdesh with her fantastic new book The Body Temple. When Ramdesh asked if I’d be a model for this gorgeous and wise book that explores body image in all it’s crucial aspects, my mind told me that I wasn’t good enough for that. My mind told me that I shouldn’t be seen from the side, that I should starve myself for a couple weeks first, that I should find a way to hide. And so I forced myself to stop, to pray, dear God, give me the strength to see these thoughts for the unreal trickery that they are. I sat down with myself and stayed and posed for the photos, and they are now part of a book that is truly filled to the brim with beauty and honesty and grace. I thought, I am letting myself be a warrior, to stand in my own strength and in my weakness and feel the pressure between them. I can be scared and brave. Within this kind of act, I start to re-member my own disconnected self, and in doing so truly become again. Like that sweet Velveteen Rabbit, I am made a bit more real.

I just finished reading Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton. Like all good teachers, this book came at exactly the right moment. Here, Melton writes,

“The Journey of the Warrior. This is it. The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to surrender to. It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up. So I will sit with my pain by letting my own heart break. I will love others in pain by volunteering to let my heart break with theirs. I’ll be helpless and broken and still–surrendered to my powerlessness. Mutual surrender, maybe that’s an act of love. Surrendering to this thing that’s bigger than we are: this love, this pain. The courage to surrender comes form knowing that the love and pain will almost kill us, but not quite.”

Much like the warrior pose on the mat, we are given the ability for ferocity not to destroy, but to find strength enough to achieve integrity, compassion, love. It’s the strength that allows us to keep our feet firmly planted to experience pain and imperfection, and still allow our hearts to rise up and fly. I have learned that I can be that kind of warrior.