How a Handstand Changed the Way I View Life

In the age of 10 I started to dislike winter. Don’t understand me wrong, I love snow, skiing, staying inside to get cozy - all of that. But winter also meant one thing in school - it is time for gymnastics. Even as a sporty kid I hated it, especially everything on the mat.

When my teacher said, "In one month we are going to test you in wheel, headstand and handstand", I got already nervous. My teacher picked one girl from our class who was great in gymnastics and let her demonstrate. It looked as the easiest thing ever and my teacher thought with this one demonstration we are good to go. “Just go and practise."

Photo by Marion Michele on Unsplash

All my friends could already do things like the wheel because they learnt it in Kindergarten while playing around. No big deal, no pressure, just kids playing and trying out. I did not learn it back then. My mom and my older sister could not do it either. So I formed the believe in my head that as I did not learn it before I won’t be able to learn it now. That is just what it is in my family. I remember that my sister and me were practicing at home and uff, we got frustrated! Because even with all this practice we did not get significantly better. I eventually was able to get into a headstand with my sister supporting or only at the wall but that was it.

When the test came along, I decided to just get the worst mark for not even trying it instead of the humiliation I felt trying it in front of my whole class and then fail. I did not trust myself that I am able to, how could I then even trust my classmates to hold me up? A class which did not feel supporting anyways at that time.

I thought when I am out of school this problem will just be out of my mind and out of life. But getting older I noticed that this believe “When I did not learnt it as a kid, I will never learn it now” is not at all serving me. I was very hesitant of leaving my comfort zone and try something which I wasn’t certain that I have at least some talent for it.

Photo by Sandrachile on Unsplash

What you resist persists. What you look at disappear.
Neale Donald Walsch in Conversation with God

I decided I want to overcome this believe and actually put “doing a handstand” on my life goal. And this year I decided to be really serious about it. But this time I took a different approach. Instead of only chasing the result I took one step back, learnt arm balances first, strengthen my core and my shoulders and seek help from people who could explain me the different steps.

I feel very lucky to have a very supporting environment right now, who is helping me wherever they can. I learnt how I need to place arms and hands, what measurements I need to take and how I can take step by step lifting one leg at a time. And most importantly accept that I might fail and fall.

Just last week as I was playing around - yes, it got playtime to me- I managed to get myself up in headstand without help, without the wall - just by my own. I was so surprised about that and so happy! I called my flatmates to see and together we were jumping around in the living room on my mat, hugged and I danced my “Happy dance”.

Working on my headstand and handstand is literally changing my perspective, viewing my world upside down. When I manage to learn that - I can learn everything I want! That is a good new believe to live with, right?

And after solving this what other believes are there about our life's which are actually holding us back?
Identify it, look at it and changing it to a new empowering believe!