When I have some time to myself, I engage in a compulsive behavior.
I often spend much of my time sifting through snatches of conversations, closely scanning facial expressions, and reviewing relationships, searching for the missing part of a formula that doesn’t add up: work, students, my daughter… strangers. I play moments over in my head like a movie montage. Sometimes I turn them upside down or backward. I pause or replay. I’ll zoom in on a feeling, a moment, an image. I really can’t help it. I think I was 14 the first time someone told me I “thought too much.”
Now, some might warn, “That is compulsive—bordering on deranged—if one cannot seem to ‘let go’ of something or ‘leave it be.’ How healthy can that be?

” Neither of which I am good at. There is no part of me that wants to put an object down from observation. I fundamentally ask, “Why?” whenever this is suggested to me.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am, in fact, compulsive. Maybe life is better with fewer “review” calls in the football game.
Maybe a return to things that you cannot affect is a fool’s errand.
But here’s what I say to that:
I return to the pain of my experience not to wallow, but to study. I watch myself and my motivations and compare them to the reception and the fallout. I see how each step—or misstep—could have caused this or that to occur. I examine the cohesion of events and how one thing has flowed into another and consider: Would I make that choice again? Would I stand in that light again? Does that action, that ripple into the world, reflect who I desire to be?
And that question feels essential to me. Like capital E “Essential.”
So, I’ve been doing this pretty regularly for about nine years now—in a beautiful dovetail with my yoga journey. Because, well, the body and the mind become a cycle for reflection and feedback. (But, alas, that is a topic for a different blog. 😊)
The more I engage in this process of replaying the moments in my life that are now in the past—especially the painful ones—the more I understand that fumbles or faux pas are just part of the game—collateral damage for being human. We win some, we lose some, right? I’ve realized that regardless of how much a past scenario is deconstructed and cataloged, it is rare that any one momentary occurrence will irreparably alter anything. Rarely will a solitary incident shift the entire shape of an experience. Those moments are few and far between in the thousands of meaningful interactions I have each day. Those moments swoop in from above and steal your breath from your chest—and there is nothing you can truthfully do in that moment but breathe. (Of course.)
But when we reflect, we are essentially “practicing” for our next shot, lining ourselves up for the chance to “level up.” So, when I play those scenarios over in my head, I stand ready and poised to make the choice that supports my string of successive gestures. When we reflect with intention toward our values, we reaffirm the best version of ourselves.
I return to the pain in order to squeeze every last drop of learning from it. I chew it to death until I am sure there is nothing left that this pain has to teach me.
And so when I think of our what our community offers, we offer training in the way of peace. We become Peace Warriors, rippling the best version of ourselves out into this world.
So grateful to practice alongside you all.
-Emilee
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