{"id":385073,"date":"2026-01-22T23:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385073\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T23:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:31:08","slug":"learning-to-reveal-our-unlovable-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385073\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Reveal Our Unlovable Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comedian Mike Birbiglia likes to joke that yoga is basically stretching while trying not to fart.<\/a><\/p>\n

The joke works because it\u2019s so recognizable: the effort of holding something in that feels unlovable, awkward, or inappropriate\u2014yet is completely human.<\/p>\n

This post, you guessed it, uses flatulence as a gateway to something deeper: what\u2019s possible when we stop trying so hard to appear more put together. Because the real strain isn\u2019t the feelings (or gases) that move through us; it\u2019s what it costs us when we try to suppress them.<\/p>\n

My dog, Walnut, is an expert in not suppressing herself.<\/p>\n

Tightening as a Way of Life<\/p>\n

This post didn\u2019t originate in a power flow class after a bean-forward chili; it came from a dance festival this past weekend called Interfusion.<\/p>\n

I was telling my friend Erik about the experience and shared the joy and connection I felt. But I also told him about the underbelly: sadness around women I connected with that didn\u2019t quite work out the way I\u2019d hoped, and judgment about how I spent my time and energy in the paradox-of-choice of events like these.<\/p>\n

When Erik admitted he felt similar things, I saw the power of recognizing that an oxytocin<\/a>-filled weekend could also be a place of sadness and anxiety<\/a>: I felt less alone, and so did he.<\/p>\n

Most of us learn to manage how we\u2019re perceived fairly early in life. Schools, workplaces, and relationships of all kinds all teach us to put our best foot forward, often at the expense of something more human. We sand away the grittier parts of our experience in favor of how we think we should be. (For more on should-ing, see my last post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

We feel jealousy<\/a> at a friend\u2019s wedding but only talk about how happy we are for them. We get passed over for a promotion and skip over the sadness, jumping straight to \u201ccongratulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s human to have these mixed feelings; perhaps the only more human thing is to judge ourselves for having them. I should be grateful<\/a> for what I have, or I shouldn\u2019t be ruminating about the mediocre and expensive food while on vacation (anyone else?). The burden isn\u2019t the feelings themselves; it\u2019s when we scold ourselves for having them.<\/p>\n

From Me-Problem to Us-Reality<\/p>\n

Try this on in your own experience: When we reveal the parts of ourselves that seem unlovable, others rarely recoil. Mostly, they don\u2019t mind. Sometimes, there\u2019s a new closeness. And, occasionally, they\u2019re a little impressed by our courage.<\/p>\n

Over time, I\u2019ve seen how much unnecessary suffering comes from self-monitoring, and how freeing it can be to let it go. The body was designed to move things through. The strain comes from resisting that movement, gaseous or not (sorry, couldn\u2019t help myself), and remembering we are not alone.<\/p>\n

This realization first came when I talked with others about how hard it is to meditate. That being constantly distracted, spending the whole time thinking about my grocery list, or barely being able to count to two in a breath-counting exercise wasn\u2019t just a me-problem, it was an us-reality.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a big upside: Worrying less about our ordinary human moments can give us more energy for what actually matters: for appreciating a non-management<\/a> job or enjoying the wedding, festival, or yoga class.<\/p>\n

Finally Being Real<\/p>\n

Several years ago, my friend Emily helped me see how much I had been covering over.<\/p>\n

We were having lunch during the long aftermath of a severe concussion<\/a> and the accompanying anxiety and loneliness<\/a>. My usual habit of cleaning up my messy experience had fallen away. It turned out Emily loved that version of me.<\/p>\n

At one point, her husband Jo\u00e3o walked into the restaurant, and the tone shifted to pleasantries. Emily stopped him and said, half-joking, half-dead serious: \u201cDon\u2019t interrupt\u2014Alex is finally being real for once.\u201d<\/p>\n

We laughed at the truth of what she was saying. Not just that it\u2019s OK to not be OK, as the famous book says, but that by choosing to be real, we were more connected, not less.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Work\u201d of Being Human<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s natural to worry about how someone might judge us based on limited information and to want to cultivate different behaviors or ways of thinking.<\/p>\n

Yet I\u2019ve seen again and again that when I\u2019m willing to name what I\u2019m actually feeling or experiencing, there\u2019s more space, not less.<\/p>\n

The author Byron Katie has a simple formula for working with self-criticism, which she calls The Work. I\u2019ve adapted it as a simple set of questions for the next time you feel like hiding something, or that a feeling doesn\u2019t belong:<\/p>\n

Is it just me who feels this?
\nCan I absolutely know that it\u2019s just me?
\nHow do I react when I believe that thought?
\nWho would I be without the thought, or what might change if I felt it wasn\u2019t just me?<\/p>\n

More often than not, we\u2019re operating in shared human territory, and these questions can help us sense the freedom that comes when we realize it.<\/p>\n

Less Holding, More Ease<\/p>\n

Simply put: I\u2019ve found that life gets simpler when we stop turning ordinary human experiences into personal failings.<\/p>\n

Want a concrete practice? Next time you pass some gas at yoga class or at work, don\u2019t rush to hide it. Gently admit it, perhaps even the embarrassment<\/a>, and see what happens.<\/p>\n

I know this is edgy, but we don\u2019t connect more with people by pretending we don\u2019t have mixed feelings or these bodies of ours; we connect by welcoming the human parts of ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comedian Mike Birbiglia likes to joke that yoga is basically stretching while trying not to fart. The joke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-385073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}