Kicking That Mean Girl's...You-know-what

So, 40 days of yoga.  I'm looking at that now with only 1 day down, and 39 to go, and it sounds daunting.  What was I thinking?  I am so already sore from just last night's kick butt Hatha Fusion practice.  It was great.  It was HARD.  It was exactly what I needed.  But that mean girl in my head keeps saying "You can't do this.  What a stupid idea.  You'll never follow through with it... Who do you think you are, anyway???"

Which brings me to the point of this post.  Excuse my language, but I am going to kick that mean girl's ass.  Seriously.  40 days of yoga.  40 days of telling that mean girl to shut-the-hell-up and step to the curb.  Get out of my life!  GO AWAY!

Why?  Because I realized something during a yoga class last week.  I was struggling, and miserable, and all this anger was coming out.  (It sounds weird, but sometimes in the middle of class, emotions/stuff just come out, and this time I just suddenly got SO MAD!)  So there I was, holding some pose or other, and just fuming mad.  Don't know why.  Then the mean girl started talking to me.  "This is stupid.  Why are you here? You don't belong here.  You're way too fat and out of shape.  You don't belong here.  You shouldn't be here, fat girl."  And I held the pose, and listened to her.  I even repeated it to myself "I don't belong here."  And then I realized something kind of earth-shattering for me.  That mean girl in my head isn't me. That mean girl in my head is the voice of... well, I'm almost afraid to say it because you'll think I'm crazy, but... the devil. 

Now, you may not believe in the devil.  Heck, you might not believe in God.  You might believe in part of it, or none of it.  I did.  I used to not believe in any of it.  Then I believed that there was something bigger, but it wasn't God.  Then I believed in God, but not about Jesus and the resurrection.  Then I believed in God & Jesus, but not the devil.  Until one day I heard something along the lines of "If you believe there is good and evil in the world, and you believe in God, and that God is good, then you kind of have to believe in the other side too, that the devil is there on the side of evil."  And so, at the risk of sounding like a looney-tunes religious nut, I believe in the devil too. 

My friends and I have had many conversations lately about our inner mean girls.  I've even said that we should talk to ourselves nicely, like the way someone who loves us, or God would talk to us.  Someone who loves us would be encouraging and supportive, not destructive and mean.  But it's so hard to shut up the mean girl!  I'm trying to be nice to myself, and do good things for me, but she won't shut up.  She keeps coming back, trying to tear me down.  And so, listening to her in the middle of my yoga practice, I suddenly had the thought... That's the devil talking.  That's not you...you're trying to make yourself a better, healthier person.  That's an evil voice trying to tear you down.   And just like that, the mean girl shut up and vanished, and the anger melted away.  Huh.  How about that.

Go out and kick some mean girl butt today!  ;)