It was a warm thursday morning and I waltzed into my yoga studio ready to rock.  I stopped at the counter to admire the pretty beads hanging on display.

“Overgard! What’s up?”  sang Bird, my very favorite yoga instructor from behind the counter.

“I’m just checking out these beads, they’re so beautiful.”  They were Mala beads, I learned in the next moment, and Bird has trained with a woman from Nepal how to tie Mala beads the traditional way.  Ah, okay, cool, I didn’t know there was a special way to tie pretty beads, but awesome.

I placed an order with Bird to make me my own Mala necklace – white quartz for balance and nourishment with rainbow thread and a green tassel, because they’re pretty.  Later that night I looked up Mala beads and what I learned caused a curve to appear in my life path that I very willingly followed.  Mala beads are Hindu and Buddist prayer beads, traditionally strung with 108 beads per necklace and meant to slide between fingers to keep track of prayers, chants or mantras in one’s practice.  When worn they serve as a reminder of the mantra, to carry it through daily life.  And it hit me like a lightning bolt.

Without thinking my first notion of my mantra was peace.  It always is – in my marriage, in parenting, in my dealings with family, friends and strangers – I always try to maintain inward and outward peace.  But I have that under control, I’m peaceful.  My next thought was ego.  I want to lose all traces of ego.

Draining one’s life of ego is really, stinkin’ hard.  I mean seriously.  Until I made it my intention to let go of all things egotistical I hadn’t thought about how multifaceted EGO truly is.  It’s not just big headed self love that we often think of – we can tie in confidence, self-awareness, self-obsession, pride, physical awareness, on and on.  Its easy to grasp my beads and repeat “drain my life of ego” 108 times but finding the actual line of what that means, defining it and then erasing it is a whole new challenge.

How in the world am I going to achieve this?  My chosen occupation in itself is rooted in self-promotion, exhibition and pride in my work.  How else does an artist sell art?

I am very aware of my body and appearance and don’t plan on abandoning either; I will continue to eat well and stay fit, I will continue to pat eye cream and serums on my face at night.  How can I care about how I look and claim that I am draining my life of ego?

I am an awesome mother.  Not average, not acceptable.  The thing I am most proud of about myself is that I am the very best mother my kids could ever have.  That is not an awarenesss I want to lose sight of.  I will continue to be proud of Chris’ and my parenting skills.  Can pride be separated from egotism? I’m a pretty great wife, I’m a good daughter to my parents, I try to be the best sister I can be and although maintaining friendships can be a challenge for me I try to do my best there too.

None of these things make a negative impact on my life, why am I actively trying to change any of them? And it hit me, its not EGO that I desire to drain completely from my life, it’s judgment.

Judgment of others and how they dress, parent, fill their social media accounts, speak to their partner and speak to strangers.  How and when they respond to my emails, texts, invitations and messages. What they eat and drink and how often they get drunk, how often or if they work out or how many people they have slept with, how they speak to children and react to crying babies on airplanes, their vocabulary and etiquette or where they stand on abortion or religion or whether or not they believe in equal rights.

I want to drain my awareness of people’s judgement of me.  What anyone else thinks of how I dress, how I act, parent my children, converse, of how often I do yoga or the fact that I do yoga, what I eat and what I choose to feed my family, where I stand on gun control, gay marriage, people who spank their kids or FDA guidelines – nothing they think is going to change what I believe and the way I get things done.

My judgment of others will never change their lives either.

So I choose to drain my life of judgment, mine and yours.  I willingly choose acceptance and understanding and will teach both to my children every chance I get.  There is always a story behind someone’s actions and beliefs, there is usually a reason why the bully is a bully.  There is most likely pain behind someone’s catty comments and fear behind their intolerance.  The majority of the time the way someone chooses to live their life will never affect how I choose to live mine unless I actively pursue judging them for their decisions. And I just don’t want to do that.

I choose to loosen my grip on all of it and open my hands in an attempt to understand what lies beneath and the reason people tick the way they do.  I cannot make you stop judging me, but I can let it slide right off my back and out of my life.  I can still extend kindness even when I don’t receive it in return.

So continue to do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and I will encourage my kids to wear safari hats on adventure walks and dream about magic and tell them that unicorns and fairies may very well exist as far as I know.  I will show them that everyone has their own path and a right to dance along that path however they choose.

And if you or your kid ever meet me or mine, come hang out, I’ll be the one with one hand on my necklace and a smile on my face. I guarantee you’ll feel right at home.  We accept you just the way you are.