Pigeon Pose: How I Surrendered To My Accountability

Author: Emily Bestoff

Accountability. We know all about it. It is the little voice inside our heads that often pushes us to show up for ourselves. To do the work. But what happens when we resist our accountability? We create tension, perhaps mentally or physically. Suddenly it feels like we are at odds with ourselves.

This is a theme I have been working on. I found accountability to myself challenging. I hold myself accountable in small realistic ways. As a recent graduate school graduate, working 7 days a week at multiple jobs in the middle of a life transition isn’t ideal. I make it work the only way I know how: by setting small goals for myself to accomplish and use the intuition inside of me to help guide them. A huge part of this is the relationship I have with myself: showing up for the 1 class a week. As someone who works at a yoga studio, I would love to be practicing 4 days a week, but when faced with an unrealistic goal for myself, it can feel overwhelming. Sometimes just being in the space of the studio is enough. Sometimes, sitting on the clean yoga room floor, focused on my breath with a bottle of sage essential oil is enough.

Practicing yoga, like healing, is not linear.

It is that Friday night class after working a full week, that reminds me about my relationship to personal accountability. Getting into my body during a slow hip opening class is a challenge for me. I am fidgety and sighing, but I’ve also learned I am right where I need to be. It is the poses that we dread the most that are the ones that put us back on track moving forward. For me, this has been pigeon, a pose I definitely resisted for a long time. Everytime a teacher would cue it, I would attempt to get my body there and back out the moment I arrived. The intensity of what I was experiencing physically, and mentally, overwhelmed me. It wasn’t until I fully surrendered and let my body “melt” over the bolster (easier said than done) that I understood that accountability was also emotional. Doing your own emotional work to ease the discomfort of challenging situations can be both time consuming and tough.  But, when we hold ourselves accountable for what we do and say, overtime, we become more authentic humans!

Here are some tips that have helped me integrate accountability mindfully: