This is me

A few weeks ago I received a comment that cracked me up. It hasn't been the first comment like this but it made me want to write about it. The comment was something along the lines of "yogis just sip tea and do yoga". Well let me tell you, that's not all we do. When I first became a yoga teacher in 2010, I did have the belief that I now had to be "pure" so to speak. I had to be that image of a zen yogi wearing all white on a beach in a yoga pose that most can't do. Believing that I should only have good thoughts, not yell, eat only "good" foods. I'm not sure why or how I came to believe this. I think partly, it is how yoga is seen. By believing this, I was not being true to myself. I was only choosing the "light side" of the polarity.  When the day came that I realized I was not being myself, that there is no yoga pedestal and it was okay to be myself (flaws and all) boy did it feel good to stop pretending and be who I am. I am a yogi, I drink tea, I'm kind, I love, but I'm human. I swear, I fail, I lose my patience, I have a beer or glass of wine once in awhile, I yell, I allow the darker emotions to surface, I like to eat chocolate, fries, meat once in awhile, and I feel okay saying that I can't currently do half of the hand balancing poses. This is me. I accept me. The light and the dark.