#vriksasana

It is terrifying.

The idea of having no one who you can call yours.

Sometimes you feel like you have a best friend, and that sort of fizzles out too. Either you or them finds a partner to be whole, together with. Or you don't have a family you can call your own, no mum or dad or brother or sister whom you can be your fragile self around. Or a team of workers (a rare thing to find an office family now that we are digital nomads) to wake up to and make meaning together, or a clique of monstrous, like-minded friends whom you can catch the wave with. Sometimes it's hard being in a relationship with your own partner because there is no such thing as a perfect fit; just spells, potions, and acts of kindness.

Vriksasana or the tree pose is one of my favourite balancing poses among the asanas. Where you keep your one leg firmly pressed onto the ground like a tree, with all the pressure on your mound as your toes taper out like roots. Your other leg is bent and dug firmly into your pelvis, with the feet resting on the other thigh. Tall, absolutely straight, balanced - unfettered by the wind and

You go shooting up towards the sky with your body stretched upwards. Open eyes, relaxed smile, a straight elongated back.

This would be what you call a steady, graceful stretch, upward, outward and very much inward.

The thing about certain people who grow up without a home, is that they are naturally built to please anyone who offers them one; to serve, to want to belong to, to fill this gigantic void of this lack of identity, to feel worthy, to feel connected, valued, and seen.

To be angered by the uneven playing field on a daily basis. To shut up and bulk up. Try their best to be nice inspite of the exclusions, norms, stigmas, and questions; despite the endless self pity.

Real independence is the real acceptance of one's alone-ness. This is hard. It only sinks in when it sinks in. A straight back is the key to life. Inner posture - outer posture.

To truly accept that it's you who's got your own back. It's you who gets yourself into your messes. It's you who gets yourself out of them. You are your own bend, rise, flow and fall. Self-damnation, self-salvation, self-liberation.

100% a movement of your own mental and physical muscles.

To not expect.

To not hold on to.

To gently let go off things that are not meant for you.

To love anyway.

To give the benefit of doubt.

To be free and give freely.

To not be bound by memory.

These things sound hard but actually they're the lightest things one can do for oneself and others.

The ideas of love, loyalty and belonging. Such are engulfing. Wonder what would happen if I allowed myself to expect such and manifest such. Would I be setting myself up for failure? The key is to not expect in return I suppose. Singular, tall, free, and bountiful.

Still transitioning in my process. I've come a long way since being overly attached to friends, lovers and ideas. Finding myself less attached to labels. Find it funny how you get a different reaction about who you are from different people, all vastly different in their idea of you.

Makes you realise how impermanent and how illusive 'you' are.