My son is an extremely picky eater. The number of foods he will eat willingly is extremely small, and in general, the foods he prefers are on the bland side. As an example, the only Mexican food he will
tolerate is the burrito: beans, rice, and cheese only, absolutely no salsa. Not only that, but he will only accept these burritos from two or three places. Apparently, when all you eat are pinto beans, you begin to appreciate the subtle differences between methods of preparation. Or something. He’s 28 – why do you ask?

But I digress. He’s been like this all his life, and as his mother, I was pretty much prepared to either cater to his tastes or face an uphill struggle getting him to eat something that didn’t fall into his limited category of acceptable foods. So, when he was around five, and we were out at some park day outing with a group of moms and kids, and someone offered him a piece of watermelon, the words on the tip of my tongue were, “Oh, thanks very much, but there’s no way he’ll eat that.”

For some reason, I didn’t say anything. And as you may have guessed from the title of this piece, he not only ate it, but he liked it. From that point on, watermelon was one of the two fruits he would eat, and I
was so grateful we had added it to the repertoire. He totally surprised me on that day.

I have been thinking lately about the dynamic that grows between parents and children that, for better or worse, is heavily influenced by interactions between sleep-deprived adults and (often) cantankerous
toddlers. About how, as the children grow, the parents are still carrying expectations developed from behaviors that their children may have actually outgrown. Over time, it may be that parents are reinforcing those behaviors by anticipating them, possibly to the extent of not really experiencing how their growing children are becoming able to choose a different path if it is offered to them.

So I try really hard now that my children are young adults to let them surprise me. And they often do. (Which is not to say that I do not frequently anticipate the exact words that are going to come out of
their mouths, because that totally happens too.) My point is just that even when you think you know exactly what someone is going to do, it’s often better to wait and see what happens.

Which brings me to mindfulness and yoga. This waiting and seeing – it’s hard. The mind, I believe, craves certainty, which is perhaps a stand-in for security and safety. I’m pretty sure there’s been a lot written
about how the human ability to predict and categorize is an adaptive mechanism that has served us well when it comes to finding food and shelter, navigating dangerous situations, and even creating the stability required to successfully raise our young. The thing is, it’s not super helpful when you’re trying to move forward in a relationship, regardless of whether it’s your children, your partner, or your co-worker. It’s also not really helpful on the yoga mat.

I see this in almost every aerial yoga class I teach – people come in expecting that it’s going to be too difficult, to require strengths and skills that they don’t think they have. And while it’s not true that they
succeed with every single attempt, it’s certainly true that they do for the most part. They surprise themselves time and time again. This dynamic plays out in every yoga class, of course, especially when people are trying challenging balances or deep stretches, but in aerial yoga, we see it in almost every class. It’s one of my favorite things about aerial yoga.

The thing is, there’s no certainty. If you put yourself out there in the hopes that things will go better than you think they will, there’s every reason to think that they won’t, and you’ll wind up disappointed,
and wouldn’t it have been better to protect yourself from the start? Maybe. Or maybe we can dig down deep and find the resilience to acknowledge that even if we didn’t get the best result, we at least don’t
have to reproach ourselves for having unwittingly set ourselves up for failure. We can let go of disappointing results, and we can persist in being open to change.

When we open ourselves to change, we’re looking at that situation of abiding in discomfort, much as we frequently do when we challenge ourselves in yoga class with a pose that may be uncomfortable, or
perhaps intimidating. We’re acknowledging that desire to climb onto the rock of certainty, but we’re staying steady in unknowing. I think that in our life, and in our practice, one of the best things we can say to ourselves is, “Surprise me.”