Don't assume what others are looking at, just live in your own world

I told my yoga teacher that it was too stressful to practice with the best and I couldn't bear the look of disdain.

She was also a practitioner of Ashtanga. Ashtanga, she says, is a relatively serious exercise. In fact, everyone is paying attention to themselves when they practice. Especially the master, they will be more focused on their own practice, and will not be distracted to observe the practice of others, or even make comments.

And I think of other people's contemptuous eyes, just my own hypothetical situation. In fact, everyone else is in their own practice, who will care about me?

Then she shared her own experience. As a yoga teacher, she said, she rarely demonstrated handstands in class or tried them in a classroom with a large group of people. At that time, her handstand had not reached a very stable stage, and occasionally she would flip over. Of course, even if you roll over, you can still make a backturn, not an awkward and irreversible crash to the ground. Her hesitation is not because she is afraid of the failure of the movement itself, but because she is afraid of what others will think of her after the failure, and whether her practice and teaching will be questioned.

Once, she said, she somehow managed to demonstrate a handstand in class, and then accidentally flipped into a wheel pose. But it's not as bad as she thought. Even mistakes can teach students something useful, like how to safely exit a handstand when you lose your balance. For example, even teachers make mistakes. This is a positive message to practice. She said with a smile, in fact, other people are very tolerant, you think of other people's ideas, often set their own limitations.

Later I met my master classmates at the gate of the yoga studio. One of them said, I don't think I've seen you around lately.

I am a little ashamed to say that the gap with you is too big, embarrassed to come.

She was shocked and said, "How? This student could easily get in and out of the pose from standing as I struggled to do the wheel pose. I often feel a sense of untouchable powerlessness at that time, wondering what she would have thought of the awkward and rigid practitioner next to her.

Maybe we're all exaggerating other people's opinions for our own sake. Maybe we think people are staring at us. And that vision, like an invisible cage, shackles our actions and thoughts. But the truth is, people don't care that much about you. You think other people's eyes and views, just their own judgment and projection of their own. You magnify your fear, and then you cower in that big shadow.

Sometimes you don't think your voice is good enough to belt out at KTV, and you don't mind hearing other people's awkward accents. Sometimes you get a bad haircut and you feel so humiliated that you run into someone you know and they just say, "Cut your hair." Sometimes you fall a big tumble on the road to be seen by people, think how to face such a stupid thing, but the passers-by are probably commonplace to even help you a hand in the hing quality are not.

There are all kinds of failures and gaffes in our lives, and the development of social media has given us the illusion that such failures and gaffes can be widely spread and laughed at, and never be turned back. But the truth is, even if it is laughed at by people who don't care, it probably lasts only a short time. No matter how stupid you are, you can't keep people's attention for long.

And more importantly, what does the ridicule actually do to you? It could just be a completely unconscious remark, a parroting comment, and he may not know you, or he may know you but he doesn't know the context. And because we are afraid of such comments, we choose not to move forward.

At the Winter Olympics a few years ago, Kwan made a big mistake. No MEDALS, of course. The next day's newspapers and websites were filled with pictures of embarrassing falls. Even though she once perfectly completed one difficult movement after another and stood gracefully on the podium again and again, now she has to face the rolling broadcast of failure pictures on TV, she still calmly said, "It's a pity, but this is life."

Our little embarrassments are nothing compared to the spectacle of facing the ground in front of thousands of people with the expectations of millions. Mature athletes have probably trained such a calm, no matter how many people are watching you, no matter success or failure, there is no other eyes. You are in your own life after all.