I was Facebook trolling deep into a friend’s page today and found a fascinating story.  It was about an ad that a real estate company mailed out in Washington state.  On the left side of the flyer was a picture of an attractive and totally disheveled woman in a business suit in the middle of total kid chaos. She was holding a little kid who was painting on her face, while another kid had tied her up with a rope.  The house was such a wild and disorganized mess that a duck was even walking around it. It was that bad.  A duck?! Across the picture was printed PART-TIME AGENT.  Then on the other side was a picture of two handsomely dressed, clean, and well-rested looking men in a quiet, calm office with lovely furniture. Across this picture was printed FULL-TIME PROFESSIONALS. And across the bottom it said “Who do you want to represent you?” See the fun for yourself here!

As you might imagine it caused quite a stir and the two realtors who put it out got a whole lot more attention & publicity than they ever expected.

I found it so offensive that I laughed out loud when I read it!

I might have also laughed because it was 4:30a.m. and I had been awake since 3a.m. with a sick kid, and was crazy exhausted. Or I might have laughed so hard for the irony of it all; I had only moments before had to let the gym know where I teach a 9:30a.m. class “today” that I wasn’t going to make it because my kids were sick and therefore had no daycare.  OR I might have laughed in a delusional haze from the smell of vomit stuck in my nose hairs from my 2 year old’s pukepalooza yesterday evening.

I am that crazy and disheveled lady! Ha!!! While we don’t have a duck in our house (yet), I did discover a huge grasshopper trapped in our bathroom, while taking my poor little daughter to the toilet a billion times early this morning.

While this ad was totally inappropriate and offensive, it maybe also offends because it is SO TRUE. At least on the left side.  That’s how I think we all feel…we are all trying to keep our selves clean, awake, and (semi) organized while there’s some random duck pooping all over our house. The big, fat lie is on the other side.  They got to have their picture’s taken while at work (not their home office) when the crazy parts of their life aren’t crawling all over them and leaving big stains on their tie.

The male/female roles and stereotypes in this scene could be argued until the end of time.  But, honestly I don’t think this matters so much.  On one side is a person who is working hard to keep it all together, wishing she could more swiftly disguise the duck wandering around the house.  On the other side are people working hard to keep it all together and hide all the ways they feel like a total screw up, praying that no one smells the duck poop they stepped on, on the way out of the house that morning.

I have recently decided to be totally honest about my horrible temper. I imagine some think; how bad can it be, I’ve never seen her get that mad? Maybe she is still funny when she loses her temper?  Nope.  I’m not. It’s ugly and I’m horribly embarrassed about it. My temper, my messy house, even the plethora of mosquitoes in our backyard can sometimes feel like a public display of my failures in general, and more specifically as a yoga instructor.  I mean seriously — I teach yoga… who am I to talk about calming down and letting go of all that is beyond your control, when my head spins over these tiny little humans making a mess of crayons, spilling water, or simply asking the same question 10 trillion times.

All while wearing they same yoga pants I just led class in and got all Namastefull in.

So, here’s the thing about yoga and the practice of keeping it all together.  Actually, yoga is just a synonym – for “keeping it together”.  Yoga comes from the root word “to bind, connect, unite”.  I think we all have this notion of what yoga looks like — calm, peaceful, healthy, clean, balanced, happy, and well rested.  But, if we really understand that we are always practicing yoga and never accomplish, achieve, or maintain some status of YOGA – then our practice is going to look like real life…like we are working hard to keep it all together, to practice big yoga. And behind those black yoga pants and sweet namaste, it’s a little messier, ya know.  But, that doesn’t make it less yoga.  I think maybe the mess (and honesty about it) makes your yoga BIGGER. Truer. Deeper. Here’s hoping, eh?

Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice is perfect.

I have no way to end this, but I need to go stop my 2 year old from blowing her nose directly into the couch. That’s gross, dude.

Practice yoga. Practice keeping it all together.  You’re doing a great job.  Know that everyone has a little duck poop on the bottom of their shoe. Keep showing up and practicing your big yoga.

Peace on your head,

Rachel