Are you Done? by Jessica Kenny

My brother has won every fight we’ve ever had since we were little. I would try really, really hard to win. I’d scream at torturous decibels, say spiteful things, even throw large objects. He would stand there, silent, unfazed. And every fight, at the first moment of quiet, he would calmly ask me, “Are you done?”

That question really fucking pissed me off.

I’m a fighter. And not in a hot Mark-Wahlberg-meets-Million-Dollar-Baby kind of way. I used to fight everyone, on everything, especially myself. Whether it was to save face, or to continue a cycle of denial/resistance that felt comforting and familiar, or simply to keep others from seeing something about me, I never really needed a reason. It had become second nature. A slippery, ego-driven, well-worn slope. But, once I’d start, even though I knew that it would pointless, it would feel impossible to turn back. The idea of giving up sounded so much worse.

Any time I felt vulnerable, raw, exposed, or weak, I fought to appear fine. Any time a friend suggested loving advice that felt like a threat to my cycle of fighting, I fought to stay right. Any time my ego felt scared or small, I fought.

I was in a war in which no one else was participating. And I was losing. Bad.

When I found yoga, my cycle of fighting become much more apparent to me. I would fight with the teacher who held me in a pose longer than I wanted to be. I would rebel by not taking wheel, if I didn’t want to. I would silently fight the girl next to me who seemed more beautiful, graceful, or together. It was My Way, or No Way. But, I didn’t do anything about it at first. I would leave class feeling more tired, more angry, and alone. I started to realize how often I met the people in my life with my dukes up. Even with the people I love, and who love me, I would sit feigning openness, but I had a six-shooter in my bra, just in case they crossed me. I was always preparing for a fight, and I started realizing I was always going to lose.

As I chose to step onto my mat more and more, I started choosing to fight less. I took the teacher’s suggestions, I listened more openly, and entertained the possibility that there could be another way than my way. Some of the best yoga practices, classes, or meditations came when I felt tired: I didn’t have the energy to fight.

The more I rolled out my mat--and, eventually, my heart in teacher training--the more unavoidably clear it became that my pattern was keeping me depleted, heavy, and alone. My brother may as well have not been in the room, because I was really just fighting with myself. Fighting with all the things I hated about me, all the things I refused to make peace with, I was fighting love.

It occurred to me: What if all the energy I wasted fighting went to something else? What if I became a lover, not a fighter? What if I did, in fact, give up?

(Whoa. Ego didn’t like that.)

Just as my ego found my brother’s question to be infuriating, my heart felt the truth of what he was truly saying: “Don’t you see how ridiculous and useless all this fighting is? When are you going to give up?” “NEVER!!!!” Ego would yell, blindly waving her Samurai sword. But, the real Me started growing more attracted to being “done.” It sounded like rest, and freedom. So, I started giving up the fight.

Fighting takes a lot of different forms: control, defensiveness, resistance, reactivity, or just straight up fighting. But, they all boil down to the same thing. They are all the ego’s way of keeping us stuck and exhausted so we stay smaller than it. My brother won every fight by not participating in it. I stayed in the same place by fighting.

Start to notice the areas in your life where you put up a damn good fight. Where you come out, guns blazing. On your mat, or off your mat. In a pose, in your relationships, toward yourself. What if you were “done?” What if the war was over?

You have officially been given permission to stop fighting. You will not lose, but gain. Hey. We just may find out, together, that giving up is the greatest victory of all.