You Are Not Hard to Love: A Yogi's Journey Through Self-Doubt

Have you ever been plagued by intrusive or wandering thoughts during your Asana practice? I have. Sometimes I walk into the studio and as soon as I sit down on my mat, a voice pops into my head. It tells me "You are hard to love." That voice makes it so hard to find equanimity in my practice and sends me spiraling. I can't stay aware in the present moment because I become consumed by this lie.

The thing is, it doesn't FEEL like a lie to me, especially in the moment. This feeling isn't new. In childhood, I was deeply uncool in school. Even among my fellow nerds I wasn't really accepted. Throughout my life, I've never been my best friend's best friend. I just feel hard to love.

There's a scene in the movie Elizabethtown where Kirsten Dunst's character tells her love interest that she's a "substitute person," the kind of person who gets included when no one else is available. When I first saw the movie, I felt like I finally had words to explain something I had always known to be true about myself.

This feeling followed me into my yoga teacher training. During YTT, I would look around and see other people finding their "person", and I always felt a little on the outside. Everyone was nice to me, I connected with all the students in the group, but I felt like I wasn't in the "in crowd."

In the stillness of my asana practice, I replay all the times I've been unloved. I revisit every memory of rejection. I walk around my mind inspecting everything I've said that might cause others pain or offense. I look under every rock, check every nook and cranny for proof that I'm just a hard person to love.

But here's the thing: yoga tells us that this is absolutely a lie. We don't have to be different than we already are to be important, to be loveable. As B.K.S. Iyengar beautifully put it, "There is no difference in souls, only the ideas about ourselves that we wear."

This idea that I'm hard to love, it's just that. An idea. Not every thought you have is true. Thoughts are not facts. When we believe lies about ourselves, we get in the way of contentment. So when I sit on my mat and hear that voice whispering "You are hard to love," I've started to shout back "I am well loved. I bring joy wherever I go." And if that doesn't feel true, I tell myself it's okay. Not every thought I have is going to be true. So why not give myself something beautiful to think?

If you feel like you are hard to love, I invite you to join me on this journey. Start whispering to yourself that you are EASY to love. When the voice gets really loud, give yourself this act of yoga: ask a friend to tell you one thing they love about you. If you feel embarrassed about it, ask me! I won't judge you, and I will tell you something true about yourself. After all, I'm in this boat of self-loathing right with you; who am I to judge?

Remember, you are not hard to love. You are love itself.