I realize that this blog has basically turned into the yoga journey blog but, alas, most of my facing inward comes during my time on the mat. To that in a bit...

I'm totally double jointed. When I put any pressure on my arms, my elbows pop out -- so picture that the inside of my elbow is all the way turned away from my body -- ALL the way. As my yoga practice is developing I'm finding that this thing that I always used to get made fun of for is hindering my practice. Not only can I not do chatarungadandasana correctly, nor upward facing dog, nor bakasana but, hell, I can't even do dandasana correctly. Saturday after practice my teacher was helping me and basically did a big 'ole Indian burn on my arm and told me that I have to retrain the muscle to be straight instead of curved out. OMFG I tried that today - boy howdy did it hurt like hell and I had absolutely no ability to hold my weight. I'm not even sure it is possible to restructure my arm, it's been like that since I can remember. Basically it means holding my arm in a position that "looks normal" but is not normal for me.

My inner journey seems to be escaping me right now and I now the reason why. I have done some things in recent months that I am just not proud of nor am I comfortable with them. These are things that are personal to me, not involving my children or anything. I am ashamed, embarrassed, frustrated, forlorn among a host of other emotions. I feel like it is a huge block in my ability to grow spiritually. Perhaps that is the karma debt, I don't know. I was reading in one of my Buddhist texts today about judgment. As most of you know, I'm a huge proponent of eliminating judgement from our lives. I'm not the master of it but I do understand how you are supposed to do it: You can judge the action as inappropriate or appropriate, right or wrong, whatever but you never attach a judgement to the person. The person is not right or wrong, inappropriate or appropriate, bad or good for the action only the action. So, why then, is it completely impossible for me to practice this with myself?