Good Optics Don't Equal Fulfillment
For the over two decades that I taught yoga, I can’t tell you how many times I watched students try to push their knees toward the floor in butterfly pose.
The soles of their feet together, knees bent, so their legs looked like wings, these yogis would engage in a little wrestling match with their hips, earnestly pressing on the ends of their knees.
In those moments, it was my job to remind the class that it isn’t what the pose looks like that makes it right, it’s what it feels like.
Attaining knees resting on the floor isn’t the posture. If you get enough sensation in your inner groin to feel a stretch and not so much that you want to scream or escape the pose, you are in the posture.
As one of my first yoga teachers liked to say, “You can get your knees to the ground in this pose and still be an asshole.”
Yoga is not about optics. It’s about your felt experience and your level of presence to yourself. More directly, it’s about becoming a trustworthy guide for yourself in finding the experience that feels like the perfect combination of comfort and stretch, one that allows for growth without undue pain.
And yet—how tempting it can be to give your knees a liiiiitle press…to get closer to how you think it should look.
I’m thinking of a client of mine who last year started dating the. perfect. lady. You couldn’t have come up with a better lady for her on paper. Just her type, the right job, the gorgeous home in the best neighborhood, adored by her community, and all the little synchronicities that made it feel like fate had finally matched her with the one.
Except the perfect lady didn’t always return her calls or show up when she said she would. She kind of made things about her. A lot. And she didn’t seem to be very good at being empathic to my client. Or really anyone.
My client admitted that it didn’t always feel great to be around her. But she was perfect!!
I reminded my client that optics are different than your experience. As my old yoga teacher might say: your new girlfriend may be able to get her knees to the floor in butterfly pose, but she sounds like kind of an asshole.
Whether it’s about sussing out a new romantic partner, a job, or an old friendship, it’s hard to resist the allure of the optics. But like pressing your knees down in butterfly pose, when you’re more attached to what it looks like—on paper, to you, or to other people—it’s more likely to result in you getting hurt.
Believe me, I know! I was a champion knee-presser when it came to picking many things, especially men to date. Until one day my therapist asked me, “Jay, don’t you have any men in your life who you feel truly considered by?”
And I said, “Yeah! My neighbor. Dave. He’s wonderful, and I always feel considered by him and happy when I’m with him.”
“Why, for god’s sake, have you not asked him out??” she shot at me.
“Because he’s 20 years older than me.”
“SO WHAT?”
Optics. Despite all I’d learned from butterfly pose, I still unconsciously placed weight on what a relationship looked like.
My attachment to optics was partly societal conditioning, but also (and maybe more importantly) that I didn’t trust placing weight on a relationship feeling good.
Like my client, I still unconsciously thought it was more important that the other person "look like" someone I should be with than that I liked who I was when I was with him.
I didn’t know for sure that liking how I felt in a relationship was not just ok, but kind of THE point.
Thank goodness I got over that, because three years later, having fallen in love and moved in next door with my neighbor Dave, I couldn’t be happier.
Want to stop metaphorically pressing on your knees? Want to feel like you’re living your life as it suits you instead of trying to get your life to look like an image in a magazine? Check out my signature online program, Yours Truly.