Hello PP tribe from Massachusetts! Thank you to everyone who came to my workshop on Saturday in NYC! You all blew me away. I will see you again in September for the launch of my teen girl workshop: Girl Power: You Are Enough! I. Cannot. Wait. Please help me spread the word about this. I believe this message is so so needed for young people. For all of us, really. But especially young folks. Thank you. I truly love you. I’ve missed you guys the last couple of weeks while I have been on the road.

So, I have this rule in my yoga classes that goes like this: If you fall, you must laugh. Sometimes I add, and take down your neighbor. I heard someone else say that last part in a class and I thought it added a certain (much needed) levity to the yoga room. The point is: it’s important to have a sense of humor. Life can suck. A lot. I get that. (As I sit here with a recently broken foot.) But quite often our own attitudes make it suckier. Or our non-willingness to laugh at ourselves or to see the opportunity for grace, joy, lightness.

A tale to make you smile ( I hope. Hee hee):

I sometimes fail at taking my own advice.

I have these bracelets. You might have one. If not, I can get you one. Easy peasy. They are cobalt blue and they say: What Are You Manifesting? on one side. The other, and more important, from a business standpoint: Manifestationyoga.com.

The inside: Manifesting Your Life, One Laugh at a Time.

I had ordered 400 of said bracelets from a for an east coast tour. (Like I’m Prince. On tour and all. But it’s true. I was. NYC, Boston, Philly, New Jersey.) I opened up the bag to put one on and nearly fainted. Not from the chemical smell of 400 rubber bands, although that was bad. No. Because they said: Man- Festationyoga.com.

Man festation?

Am I being infested with men? WTF!

Where is my “I”??

It’s crucial! I need the I! I need my I! That little missing letter between the “n” and the “f” turned me into a porn site!

Ok, so here is my confession: I did not, in any way, shape or form, “laugh when I fell.”

I kicked the door and threw the 400 bracelets across the room. What am I going to do with 400 Man Fests? I yelled at my front door as I kicked it.

I worried that people would go to find me at Man-festationyoga.com and instead would end up with naked men. With men who were festing. Whatever that means.

This is where my opportunity to laugh was. I am laughing now, but I can assure you when it happened, I was not laughing.

I had four bags of 400 man-festing bracelets so I started giving them out in my classes and workshops. Ready for it? All the ladies and gay men wanted one. I ran out very very quickly.

I overreacted in the moment.

I’m still working on it, folks.

I broke my foot last year. I tripped. This time, I literally fell. I did not laugh. Even as the month wore on, and the injury became less fresh, I didn’t laugh. I was grumpy. I found myself taking myself more seriously than I would care to admit. I kept thinking that I should take my own advice, lighten up, laugh at yourself, get over it, don’t take yourself too seriously.

I realized though, with the immobilization from the break, and in looking back at the man-festing debacle, that some gifts come belatedly. Like the gift of the bracelet? It took a couple of hours before I could laugh and turn it into a good story. The gift of my broken foot? It’s coming, slowly. It’s a process, like most things in life. A practice and a process.

It takes practice to laugh sometimes. Especially when we feel frustrated, stuck, angry, sick, misunderstood, etc. But the good news? We get to keep trying. We get to go Oh wait, I reacted really kind of crappily. Can I get a do-over? Can I man-fest a do-over?

I got over the bracelets. I got over my foot breaking. Next time something like the bracelet crisis happens I won’t kick my door in and throw a bag of 400 smelly blue rubber bracelets down the stairs. Next time, I’ll pause, breathe and ask, “Alright. Now who needs to man-fest something?” And I’ll try and find the light. I’ll always keep trying to find the light.

I would like to hear from you. Any situations that you learned from? Any situations where you were able to see the humor? Where you missed it? Can’t wait to read.

My firm belief is that we have to be willing to laugh at ourselves. @JenPastiloff
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See you next in Atlanta on August 8th and then Chicago Aug 22. It will be my first time in Chicago so I hope to see many of my Pos Pos peeps. Hugs all around! xox jen

Jen leads retreats that are a combo of yoga/writing and for ALL levels. Read this post to understand. Click here for all retreat listings and workshops to attend one in a city near you (Atlanta, NYC, St. Louis, London, Chicago & more, are next). Jen is the guest speaker 3 times a year at Canyon Ranch and leads an annual retreat to Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health every February, as well as an annual invite only retreat to Tuscany. She is the founder of the popular The Manifest-Station website. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter. She is the founder of Girl Power: You Are Enough.