keep doing the things you're bad at

I've been failing in public all year (it's worth it)

It first hit me in the passenger seat of my best friends car.

I was enchanted, completely.

It was sometime last year, driving between Kyoto and Osaka, as we had done many, many times before. But this day was different. I realised I was reading a large majority of signs we drove past without any effort at all.

It’s a weird feeling, when a bunch of shapes and lines that used to have no meaning, suddenly come alive.

You are the same but also, it feels like everything has changed.

These moments now hit me frequently. They are moments I am incredibly grateful for. The process of slowly (very slowly) untangling the Japanese language is nothing short of magic, it’s psychedelic, even. And it is so much deeper than communication alone.

It also challenges me to my very core.

---

I am not exactly new to Japanese, so it pains me to say it still eludes me. After studying for six months at university, I never studied again seriously until this year, but remained connected to the sound and shape of it through my Japanese friends, my yearly visits and watching Japanese films. I enrolled in a language school for a bit but fell back out. I would have a burst of pulling out my old textbooks, listening to japanesepod 101, and fumbling around on duolingo, and other language learning apps, especially over the last few years, but Japanese (for me, anyway) is a language that can not be significantly improved without discipline and very real effort. It is a language that does not fuck around.

As someone who celebrates baby steps, I do not discount all those micro moments of language absorption over more than a decade (it’s without a doubt the reason why my pronunciation is quite good, to the point of people often mistaking me as fluent when I am, absolutely and irrevocably, not) but — it was not enough to actually improve conversationally, at all.

While spending time in the country and having Japanese friends will mean you pick up a good collection of words and micro phrases, that will serve you incredibly well on a daily basis, actually pulling longer sentences together and expressing yourself is another thing, entirely.

I deeply (deeply) believe that no moment of effort is ever wasted,

However:

(Sorry)

I also believe, in order to weave those micro doses of effort into something beautiful, there (usually) has to be portals of time in which it is going to be hard.

For example:

Writing for fifteen minutes most days is, without doubt, going to make you a better writer. Even if it’s just that, forever, it’s still worth doing.

But:

(🥴)

If you want to be a writer, publish your work, find community or grow your business with your writing, then, there are going to be moments in which you have to move past an uncomfortable edge with it, over and over again.

There are going to be moments in which it will require a lot of effort and discipline.

There are going to be moments in which you will suck, in which you will not receive the results you desire.

There are (probably) going to be moments where you consider giving up because you believe you’re not good enough. Because what you want isn’t happening fast enough.

There are going to be moments in which it is, extremely hard.

This is going to look wildly different for everyone.

It might simply be finishing your first piece. It might be finally hitting publish or send. It might be about regularly putting your voice out into the world. It might be the editing, or simply, hours that could be spent elsewhere.

In the past, I would say I didn’t have time or space to learn Japanese properly.

To be honest, I don’t believe this is ever actually true.

We always have time for the things that are really, truly important to us.

And if that triggers you, don’t worry, it triggers me too.

---

It’s 2015 and I am doing my first yoga teacher training.

We have a full day of training every Thursday for six months.

I love it so much it hurts.

It hurts, because almost every single week it makes my body ache, and it makes me cry.

Every week I am exhausted, and so alive.

The year before I did my first teacher training, I spent three months in Osaka. I lived in my best friends apartment in Hattori-Tenjin, on the Hankyu line. The rent was disturbingly cheap. It was a minuscule dot of a room with the smallest bathtub I’d ever seen in my life.

I loved it, deeply.

I think about that apartment often. It was terribly insulated and it was February and I’d never been so cold. It was in that tiny apartment I first saw a handful of snowflakes fall from the sky and cried. It was in that tiny apartment I learned how to meditate. I hated every living second of it. My body would go numb, sitting with my legs crossed on the folded futon, freezing. I would listen to a guided meditation by Deepak Chopra (yes, this is where I started) for twenty minutes every morning before boiling the worlds smallest kettle to make black coffee from a drip bag, in attempt to warm up. I remember it all feeling like a century, waiting for the meditation to be over, waiting for that kettle to boil, waiting for spring to come.

It was in that tiny apartment I wrote my first collection of poetry. Where I started a daily practice of asana. Where I hosted my first ever online live poetry reading (which, needless to say, the people of 2014 were not quite ready for). It was in that apartment I first tasted natto and gagged. Apparently there was a lot of things I struggled with back then that I love more than anything now.

Those months I spent in Osaka I felt fragile, raw to the bone. I’d discovered yoga only a few months before and it had changed me, completely. I’d been though a breakup. I had graduated University but had zero prospects of any ‘real’ or proper job. I was listening to a lot of Drake. I’d never spent so long on a holiday, a holiday so long it doesn’t really feel like a holiday anymore. I was writing a travel blog, one I wish I hadn’t archived, and lost, called my melon soda about travelling like a local in Japan. I remember feeling guilty for not doing more touristy things. I remember having a conversation with myself that went something like: it’s okay if you just spend this time writing and visiting cafes and wandering the city and taking walks by the river listening to music. It’s not a waste of your time here. You’re allowed to do this. You didn’t take a gap year.

I was very young, but I felt desperately behind.

At the time, it was impossible for me to see.

But those three months in the void changed everything for me.

I left Osaka with an ache in my heart. I wanted to stay, but I knew I had to go home. I think about that time a lot. I had nothing, really. I had a university degree and a lifetime of high achieving, but no job. I had very little money, and very little clue what was to come, but somehow I managed to spend that small pocket of time, the first in my life since I was 14 and 9 months old, without a job. Privilege can never be left out of the conversation, I know, but also, when I think of that year (and my life in general) I’m reminded that if we really want to make something happen, no matter who and how and where we are, it is very often possible, even if it’s not in the way we thought. Even if we have to sacrifice something else.

It’s easy to make fun of our ‘younger’ or ‘stupider’ self and the insane decisions we made, but I actually think the audacity and delusion of youth, in many circumstances, is something we shouldn’t so quickly let fade.

---

I say I took easily to yoga, to practicing and teaching it, but in almost every single way, this is a lie.

The first yoga class I took as an adult is one of those cliche moments that altered my life completely.

There was something in me that instantly, immediately opened up to it, understood it, and yet at the same time, my body did not always pick up the call. For years, I would spend large portions of any given yoga class distracted, wishing and praying certain postures would not make an appearance. I always practiced in the very back corner. I felt deeply, deeply ashamed of my body and the way it would not bend to my will, the way it would not bend at all. I cried more times than I can count, less out of emotional release and more out of sheer frustration and embarrassment that I could not perform at the level of others in the room.

Teaching was the same. The first time I taught in front of a group of people I cried. The second time, I taught a vinyasa class and held back tears when everyone told me I should teach yin. The same year I completed my teacher training, I was offered a permanent class on the studio schedule. I felt like I had won the lottery. I was over the moon. And at the same time, for the first few months, I also secretly hoped no one would show up. After the class finished and the last student was out the door, I would lay on the floor, exhausted to the bone, imagining just how much everyone despised me, thought of me as a fraud.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment where the fear and the exhaustion went away, but it took years of teaching, almost every single day.

We are often told what is meant for us will come easily and again, I do believe this to be true. There will be signs and moments. You will often not believe your luck. There will be flow, sometimes even, too much. But while certain elements will fall into place if it is meant to be, others will still challenge you, and challenge you deeply. Call you forward to get over yourself, to show up and show up and show up.

---

This year, I finally started learning Japanese again, seriously, after more than ten years.

And it’s made me realise,

Yoga has taught me a lot.

One of the most surprising, and valuable lessons for me, is that my asana practice, in particular, taught me how to be okay with not being 'good’ at something I loved, with not being the best in the room. And I know you cannot be ‘bad’ at yoga or asana, but when you practice something daily, for years and years and then watch someone else waltz into their third class and perfectly glide into a handstand, it takes strength to not *feel* things.

I’ve been reminded, over and over again these last few months of my early yoga years.

As I have, over and over again, failed in public here, for everyone to see (not that anyone cares, or ever did, aside from me).

---

I became a better yoga teacher by teaching people, even when I was scared.

Even when one person showed up. Even when people walked out mid-class in a huff. Even when it was Friday night or Sunday morning or it was a last minute cover for a much better, more popular teacher, even when everyones face fell as I walked into the room.

I became a better writer by publishing my writing, even when no one cared.

By submitted it and getting rejected. By submitting it and having it accepted, and then ripped to shreds. I became a better writer by writing and posting it no matter how little feedback or interest came back.

It is one thing to study Japanese every day, to mimic phrases and learn new words and talk with your bilingual friends. It is another thing entirely, to be in a meeting with a stranger who will quiz you, pick a topic out of a hat and wait for your response to a question you’ve never been asked, no matter how long it takes. To read a newspaper article out loud in front of someone else. Theres something deeply humbling about being flung back to your five year old self.

For the last three months I have been taking 1:1 Japanese lessons and small group conversation classes and it has challenged me deeply. I have wanted to hide and melt into the floor. I have hoped and prayed for the teacher to cancel. In my first group conversation class I was the worst in the room by far. I was hot from embarrassment watching everyone watching me, waiting, unable to get the words out of my mouth.

It exhausts me, but recently, I can’t quite get enough of it all.

Sometimes, after a lesson or a conversation in Japanese where I felt like I blew it completely, I remind myself: I’ve been here before. I’ve been here with my yoga practice. I’ve been here with my business. I’ve been here with my social media accounts. I’ve been here with having hard conversations and being myself. I know the feeling of showing up and putting time in and wondering if any of it will ever count.

It always does.

It’s not about skill, either.

It’s not about the headstand or the book deal or ever getting to the point where I’ll read my favourite Japanese authors in their native tongue (although I’m keeping it as a dream).

It’s still worth it.

It’s not about being the smartest or the quickest or the best in the room, it’s about dedication.

Devotional dedication.

Joyful dedication.

To keep going with what you love even when it is so much easier to quit.

That’s really it.

Forcing yourself to do something that is relentlessly, endlessly hard because you think you have to, because you’re trying to impress someone, because you believe life can be no other way, will slowly drain your vital energy, your life force, your spice and zing.

I am a huge advocate for quitting when it’s not the right thing. Quit wildly, quit with your whole body, quit all the way out loud and do it, sacrifice it, so you have space for what you actually want to spend your precious time on.

And when you find that thing?

Give it all you’ve got.

Because even when it’s so hard you feel a little sick, it’ll still be kinda fun.

---

It’s an interesting thing.

I believe that life can be so much sweeter, and more beautiful than we’ve been led to believe.

I believe we often choose to make life harder without realising. We push away what is sweet and easy because we feel as if there is no struggle, we are not allowed to have it, it’s not worth it, we’ve done something wrong.

If you have this tendency, it is worth examining, deeply. It is a belief that can and will hurt us, for sure.

I have contemplated this a lot.

While I have reconciled this within myself over the years and created a life in which sweetness and ease and romance is abundant and plenty, I also still, very firmly believe, difficulty is both healthy and necessary.

Maybe your difficultly is speaking a language you’ve spent your whole adult life wanting to know but have been too afraid to fail at.

Maybe your difficulty is posting your writing online even though you’re terrified.

Maybe your difficulty is raising your babies.

Maybe your difficulty is dancing in public.

Maybe your difficulty is an abundant flower garden, a workout routine, financial literacy, building a home.

What may be difficult for you, may be a breeze for someone else.

It shouldn’t always be hard.

But sometimes it will be.

There are moments when success and sweetness can should and will come easy, without resistance, petals falling on the mossy earth.

Just because you’re bad at it now, doesn’t mean you always will be.

♥️

---

a photo from the hankyu line back in 2014. almost ten years to the day, I finally moved to japan.

A Note

I had to cut this substack down by about half, it was way, way too long. If you’re interested in a seperate piece on how I study Japanese and what I’ve found to be the most effective as a very (very) right brained person, let me know!