Have you ever set a goal in yoga that you couldn’t meet?
We get comfortable with self-disapproval when failing to meet our goals in life or in work. We see the ways that life’s expected pains sometime get the better of us: aging, illness, loss. When you set an expectation but fail to meet it, how do you treat yourself? And when you set that goal, was it really a personal goal or was it designed to impress or influence others?
There is a concept called maitri, which in Sanskrit loosely translates as “unconditional friendship with oneself.” Maitri is an understanding that happiness truly comes from within and is a mindful practice that we can develop to get comfortable with pain, and to stop trying to make ourselves feel good from outside sources. Maitri allows us to make friends with ourselves. It allows us to relax into who we are and helps us to deal with pain and difficulty in a more peaceful way.
When you set goals that are based on truly knowing and understanding what you need, you’ll find those goals are more realistic and attainable. It also gives you the chance to experience confusion and conflict without self-judgement. Who are you when you are challenged, not by expectations set by others but your own knowledge of yourself? Yoga and meditation gives us the chance to know ourselves at all levels, through a willingness to stay with the discomfort. We are gentle with ourselves during these hard moments, a pure example of maitri. We grow stronger and more steadfast with maitri, without giving up what we are experiencing in the moment.
Maitri allows us to recognize our own humanity, and all emotions associated with it. We accept ourselves as we are, without labeling each reaction as “good” or “bad.”
When we master maitri, we also feel more loving toward others, recognizing that they may not have learned to settle into the discomforts that life, or yoga, or anything else might bring.
In the end, maitri really means acceptance of the true self. You wouldn’t give up on a good friend when they were struggling. Making unconditional friends with yourself means seeing all of you, and not giving up or turning away even when things get messy.