[caption id="attachment_785356" align="alignnone" width="1068"]<a href="http://madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/motrin-2.jpg"><img src="http://madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/motrin-2.jpg" alt="Jessamyn Stanley And Tracee Ellis Ross" width="1068" height="583" class="wp-image-785356 size-full" /></a> From left, Vivian Odior, Tracee Ellis Ross, Gabby Bernstein, Jessamyn Stanley, Ana Flores, and Tali Sharot joins MOTRIN® to launch the #WomanInProgress campaign at And & And on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, in New York. MOTRIN® #WomanInProgress celebrates women who have shifted their perspective on painful moments to enrich their personal growth. (Jason DeCrow/AP for MOTRIN®)[/caption]
When you're a child and you fall, your first instinct is usually to cry -- even if you aren't hurt -- and, unfortunately for many of us, not much changes about our experience when we fall as adults. Though the fall may not be a physical one, the impulse to break down, even if the fall isn't really a painful thing, never leaves many of us.
That was the subject of a #WomanInProgress panel Motrin put together Tuesday night with Tracee Ellis Ross, <i>New York Times</i> Bestselling Author Gabby Bernstein, Yoga instructor and Body Positive Advocate Jessamyn Stanley, Neuroscientist Tali Sharot, and Ana Flores, Founder and CEO of #WeAllGrow Latina Network.
<p class="m_8570593208708837186MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">"Pain is a gift. If you allow yourself to be open to it, it can teach you so many things about yourself," Jessamyn said as she told the audience about her experiences being judged for her body and what it taught her about herself. Now as a yoga instructor, Jessamyn often has to help other women work through the pain of embarrassment when they first begin the practice and take every fall as a sign yoga isn't for them. Instead of allowing her students to run with that thought, she shares insight that's applicable to all types of falls, whether physical, emotional, professional, or personal.</p>
<blockquote>"It is a gift to fall," Jessamyn said. "Accept that it is supposed to happen and if you just allow it to happen and allow yourself to have the experience, you will come out of it so much stronger and so much more powerful. Just fall."</blockquote>
It was at that point that Tracee jumped in with her own experiences of falling, from also struggling to acclimate to the practice of yoga to auditioning for roles and even accepting where she is in life at the age of 44.
<blockquote>"Expectation gets me in trouble," the recent Golden Globe winner shared. "It's a dangerous trap for me. Optimism and expectation are actually really difficult for me. I think that's where a lot of my hurt and pain has come from because I had an idea that something different should have been happening and so I'm faced with matching up with what I thought it should be versus what it is and sort of the fear and terror that comes in between that the reason that is is because I didn't do enough.
"There's so many things in life that we can't control, she continued, "that are out of our hands that I can't try hard enough to make happen if I want to because whether they're going to happen or not is something I can make happen."</blockquote>
That's a hard truth for many of us to accept, but a necessary one to relieve ourselves of the shame of feeling like we didn't do enough, as Tracee pointed out, or grieving the lack of experiences that perhaps we're simply not meant to have.
Pain and falling, Tracee added, are "an opportunity for me to either frame this as something is wrong with me or I need to do something different or I did something wrong, <em>or</em> it's an opportunity to look at who I am, what's important to me, what I want more of and what choices I need to make that work for me."
"Everything good comes from falling, Jessamyn jumped in assuredly. "When you trip, when you stumble -- you never learn to get back up if you don't fall."
Check out more of Jessamyn's journey as a #WomanIn Progress in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNE9BsKBcrM
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