Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you are right

I hope you all had a great week. I taught an arm balancing workshop over the weekend. It has been a while since I had done that and it was really fun to get back to it. As I was reviewing what I had done previously and made some tweaks in preparation for the workshop I began thinking about the message I wanted to share.

When I was in my early twenties my brother gave me a magnet as a gift. I truly can’t remember the context of the gift but I had the magnet up in my refrigerator (back when most refrigerators held magnets) for a couple of years before I really thought about the meaning of the quote. It said “Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right.” 

Over the years I have thought about that quote from Henry Ford often. What we believe about ourselves is so powerful. As I shared this quote with my students this week I asked them to think of a time in their lives when they accomplished something they never thought they could, when they shut down the inner critic and believed. Our yoga practice is a perfect place to work on quieting the inner critic because if we don’t believe we will never do. 

At the beginning of my workshop I also shared the quote but I reminded my students that this quote was not about mastering arm balances. In fact, an arm balancing workshop is not really about mastering arm balances either. It is a practice in learning how to synchronize the body to fully channel its power. By activating our deep core strength, pairing it with the strength and flexibility of arms, legs & spine, and the belief that we can do it, we find lightness and we can fly. 

This practice is even more powerful out in the world because our mindfulness practice allows us to connect to our deep inner strength and our flexibility and resilience in the mind while quieting the negative chatter. Then we find lightness in our thoughts and from there… we can fly. “Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right.”