One year Acroyoga: but whom to trust?

One year like a roller-coaster-trip, one year of extremes, with the best and the worst experiences. One year in motion: That was my year of Acroyoga. By far this year for me was the year with the most encounters, the most trips, the most experiences. The most valuable is actually quite simple and still sometimes so hard to understand: It’s all about trust. 

How could I throw myself upside down into a position, carried by the feet or hands from another person, if I don’t trust her? It’s not possible without trust. But trust is not a one-way-street. Only trusting the partner is far from being enough. I am often baffled, how the way we practice Acroyoga, how we interact, how we deal with what happens to us inside, reflects our entire life. And I know this moment just too good: I’m standing safe in the hands of a partner, suddenly there’s a thought: „What if I fall?“,  or the spotter, who was just attentive, turns around and pays no attention anymore. And within a second my safe standing becomes one shaky venture. 

What happened? It’s the trust in myself, that was just there and suddenly disappears, as if playing a game. Even the trust in a partner comes and goes. It’s never the same. What I’ve learned this year: trust is not something, that grows slowly. It’s a decision, that I make in every single moment. I can say Yes to something or I can say No. And we all are suggested, that Yes is the right decision: when I say Yes, I choose trust, I open up myself and let things happen. „No” has a negative touch (especially in the superficial) spiritual world: I refuse, I block, I decide against something. But is that true?

During the last year I experienced something else: No is not worse than Yes, they both have the same rights to exist. And saying Yes does not necessarily mean to trust. „Trust and you can achieve anything.“ This is one of those beautiful sayings and I really like it. There also is a kernel of truth in it –  but not in this shortness and way, as it is often interpreted. Trust and you can achieve anything, does not mean to force your legs in Dwi Pada Sirsasana behind your head and believe it’ll be allright. It does also not mean, to let a base pop you into Foot2Hand high – strongly believing it’s gonna work if you trust enough–, though he can not even hold you in a Foot2Hand low.

Me today, I would not do a handstand on the edge of a cliff. Because even if I tell myself: „Yes, I can do it!“, there would still be a voice in me, that would hold me back. I’m just not that far, maybe I will be next year, maybe never. Others can do it and that’s wonderful. But that has nothing to do with a blind saying Yes. Trust is not the distinction between Yes and No. It is the listening to your inner voice, that is allowed to say Yes or No to something. After one year Acroyoga this is the decision, I try to make in every single moment: to listen to my inner voice and to trust it. 

Since then, trust is nothing for me anymore, which slowly grows. It is always there and I can always decide for it. Nevertheless, there is something that is growing: it is the process, how to get to this decision – and, above all, how to differ my inner voice from other voices.

Because sometimes it’s just the fear, that keeps me from doing things that I actually could do, in Acroyoga especially, for example, when I’m standing on the hands of a Partner and I have to give up control. Sometimes it’s old patterns and beliefs, that affect us to persuade, that we can not do something: „To be upside down in a headstand is impossible! I can never do it!“ But perhaps your inner voice says, let yourself be supported and try it. 

But sometimes my inner voice also wants to hold me back and says that it’s enough for my body. That’s that queasy feeling at the tenth hand2hand attempt on a day, where it just should not be. Then it’s about to distinguish the unconditional will and the ambition from what is really good for me. Saying No always means saying Yes to something else too. In this case, to give my body a rest and to accept my physical limits in this moment.  Yoga and Acroyoga are wonderful instruments to learn to differentiate this inner voice from the others. 

The exciting thing about this is, that this process never stops and it runs through life, not just when we’re practicing yoga or acroyoga. It’s all about this trust. Sometimes we want to rely so much on one thing or one person, that we say blindly Yes – even though the inner voice does scream No. I have experienced this in the last year: I made the handstand on the cliff – and I fell over. The desire for an idea – my idea –  and a project to succeed, was so big, that I pushed the inner voice aside. But out of this failure a wonderful insight has arisen. The inner voice stays! The more I disobey, the louder it becomes. Because it wants to be heard. And since I listen to it again, fantastic things happen: I got to know wonderful people this year, people, that I could instantly trust, I met acroyoga partners, that can give me such a good support, that transcending my own limits became possible. And new ways showed up to realize my idea, to connect yoga and writing – like this blog. That’s why: trust your inner voice, it knows the way!