The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

There is no doubt in my mind that the Olympics are a two week bag of emotions. The buildup to this event is huge for every athlete that participates and it is four years in the making. When their moment to compete finally comes, these athletes are literally “on the verge” of huge emotion. They have prepared themselves for the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.

Olympic athletes or elite athletes of any sort voluntarily put themselves “at risk” to experience big emotion, scary emotion if you will. They certainly did not reach a high level of success because they played it safe.

Most of us play it safe in life. We will do just about anything to avoid the risk of feeling pain or the agony of defeat that we also shut ourselves off from the potential to experience the thrill of victory. Then we wonder why. Why doesn’t opportunity come my way? Why can’t I make more money? Why can’t I find my soul mate?

As with everything in life, there are two sides of the coin. When an athlete steps onto the field it is with the understanding that he or she may win or lose. They know that there are no guarantees. They are willing to risk it all to win with the understanding that they may not. It seems, however, that our society has tried to change the rules. We have been conditioned to want a guarantee of winning without experiencing any discomfort. On a whole, we are not willing to risk much but expect a lot in return. Life just doesn’t work that way and these past two weeks our Olympians have reminded us of that.

So once again, it comes back to our yoga mats. Patanjali, who wrote the yoga sutras thousands of years ago, said that every time we practice yoga you experience what he calls a “short life”. You will encounter the ecstasy and the disappointment that you may feel in your daily lives if you dare to. You face fear, doubt and joy. You feel the thrill of holding a challenging warrior pose and the agony of trembling in a balance pose.

As your practice becomes consistent, you will find the courage to risk experiencing deeper emotion both on and off the mat. You will learn to step toward discomfort more often than backing away from it. In a sense, when you practice hatha yoga, you are training for your own Olympic event, that being your daily life.