Ready to Launch

Sometimes in our practice we feel like everything is cruising along. We're getting stronger, we feel more flexible, we can hang onto the stillness cultivated in our physical practice for a little bit longer. And then something comes along and we feel like we blew it. Maybe it's a traffic issue, a financial worry, a parenting challenge, or any of a million other things, big and little.

Setbacks. They happen. When we are progressing, it feels like we should always be progressing. Setbacks feel like failures. They make us frustrated and disheartened. It feels like all the progress we've made has been clawed back and we're right back to where we started.

On these occasions, I try to remember that an arrow can't be launched until it has been pulled back. The farther back that bowstring gets pulled, the stronger the launch and they farther that arrow will fly. The setbacks we experience can be like the bowstring gathering energy and preparing to launch the arrow.

Changing our perception of the setback from a "failure" to a "preparation" can be a real boon to our practice. It's challenging to do so, but in the end it's not the progress or the setbacks that define our practice. It's how we respond to them. The practice isn't in the outcome, it's in the process.