I love a good opportunity to laugh at myself, so when this hilarious video popped up in my news feed I couldn’t resist sharing.

Among my favorite lines were, “I drank way too much kombucha last night…” and, “I’ve got a blockage I’m working on.”

I mean seriously, who says that sh*t?

Oh wait…I do.

And it’s hilarious, because I don’t take myself quite so seriously these days thanks to my yoga and meditation practice. Instead, I am able to embrace myself with loving-kindness, acceptance, humor and appreciation.

More than anything else, we have to remember to look at ourselves in good humor. When I watched this video I was literally laughing out loud over all the things I am guilty of saying quite regularly, and in all seriousness. It was really entertaining for me, and it reminded me just how grateful I am to be free of that rigid and severe self-judgement.

I used to take myself so dang seriously that I couldn’t laugh at myself. I was uptight, miserable, over-sensitive and had a sh*tty attitude. And now, thanks to yoga and meditation, I’m free of that prison. So when a good opportunity arises to practice humility and laugh at myself, I take it.

This is the reason I love JP Sears so much. He’s hilarious, and I believe that we should all take the time every so often to make fun of ourselves in a loving way. He constantly serves as a reminder that most things don’t need to be as serious as we make them. And now, thanks to my own practices, I laugh at myself when I do things like #yogaeveryday—because yes, I’m guilty of that too.

In this space of loving humor I feel in regard to myself, I feel as though I am channeling Pema Chödrön when she talks about opening to ourselves in the very moment from which we would usually turn away. She teaches us to look it square in the eyes with loving-kindness and curiosity when “we feel like a squeamish piece of sh*t.” If we look ourselves right in the face when we feel this way, we can embrace it. We can accept and honor our less-than-good feelings, and the more we do this the freer we become—and most importantly, the more we can laugh at our silliness.

These days, I find myself in this miraculous place of non-judgement more often than not. There’s no negative chatter following the realization of my flaws. This is a huge deal for someone like me, as I spent 34 years playing judge, jury and executioner in my head, and expected nothing short of perfection from myself.

I never could have reached this place without yoga and meditation.

Funnily enough, I used to approach yoga like a competition sport. I would constantly compare myself to everyone else in class—never as equals, always as less than or better than. I spent so much time focusing on holding my poses for longer and in better form than “you,” I was completely missing what yoga was all about.

It took some years before I started to get it.

I re-approached yoga two years ago, and somewhere in the journey I started allowing myself to fall out of poses without berating myself as a failure. And I laughed at myself with love!

Next thing I knew, I was no longer comparing myself to anyone else in class. I was within, and within was becoming more and more beautiful. And those are just a few of the benefits of yoga.

All this being said, I totally understand how esoteric and woo-woo I must sound sometimes to those who don’t live a yoga lifestyle, and that’s perfectly okay. In fact, it’s funny!

Now, enjoy this hilarious video and let me know which line was your favorite:

Author: Lindsay Carricarte

Image: Simpleinsomnia/Flickr 

Editor: Emily Bartran