the Reverse Bucket List in Yoga
Upside Down at Sixty
It’s important and fabulous to have big dreams and ambitious goals, yeh? But sometimes, they can overshadow things and make us feel less satisfied with our lives. They leave us feeling as if we are not getting the point of our destination, perpetually "missing that mark."
I’ve heard it said many times: "Have big dreams and ambitious goals to fuel your life and manifest all." Yet, reading through my past New Year's wishes and 'dreaming big' notes, I see many of them repeating in circles. I look at them and realize I am still not able to make that final "dot" archived.
A few days ago, during my yoga intensive, everything shifted. I heard our yoga instructor, Dee, reading a few lines about a Reverse Bucket List that immediately lifted my spirit. From the very last row, I made myself step closer to a group learning this perfect twist for the mind—a way to get a boost by looking through a different lens of perspective.
It sounded so weird at first, but I was actually intensely curious about how it could be done in my own life... just a little tweak for my brain.
From her oral sharing, a main point stuck with me, rooted in the work of Dr. Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor who studies happiness and these very reverse lists. He says that lasting life satisfaction is equal to what you have divided by what you want, meaning that actively managing your wants and embracing a minimalist mindset can permanently raise your baseline happiness and life satisfaction."
How oddly wonderful. That's when my Japan travel project came to mind—where I am actively learning their culture and minimalist lifestyle.
DETACHMENT: Yoga teaches us to evaluate the load we carry forward on our shoulders. By recognizing our life achievements, we can cross them off our list, smile, and simply lighten our load—quietly saying, "Been there, lived through it, survived," and sometimes even celebrating with a big "Cheers of victory!"
As Professor Brooks states, it’s all about our brain—our personal control center guiding our human body through every stage of life. Once we do the "crossing work" of past events and achievements, our list shifts to a different part of the brain. Moving out of the anxious loops and into the frontal cortex, the planning and executing center, a brand-new game is activated in the mind. No more hounding ghosts rattling around the brain house.
Coming home from the second day of the student intensive, deeply inspired by Dee's unique way of explaining yoga philosophy, I sat down, opened my notebook, and got ready to reverse my life by creating my reverse yoga bucket list.
Descent to the Foundation
It looks juicy, and now the true work begins—this was only the intro.
Now I need to go and walk my stairs down to the basement first, to see the steps that brought me here, right onto this platform of now.
The Crossed List of My Life
I solo immigrated across the ocean with limited English in my mid-working life.
I not only survived, I overcame and overturned every rock into a flower.
I learned English in evening classes—days for work, evenings for study.
I got all the prerequisites for nursing school, and then, I became a nurse.
No time to waste, I had to work—so I worked, worked, and saved!
I bought my home without a mortgage.
I bought my car in cash.
I got myself into a new Master's program while still doing bedside nursing.
I traveled the world with my Master's studies and became an MA.
I became a grandma to three.
I became a yoga teacher to embrace my long years of love for yoga.
I completed my holistic study internship in India.
I learned new ways of practicing yoga where you do not need flashy outfits or a yoga mat.
I studied more yoga—not for the poses, but more for healing—and a yoga therapist was born in me.
I taught classes, I created workshops, and I explored meditation and healing with sound.
I retired from it all, nursing and yoga teaching, with a quiet heart, and became a student of life again.
The Reverse Pathway
In my yoga practice, as a student of life, I found a new stairway. This one is newly built with powerful yoga blocks, ropes on the side, and secure blankets and wraps, just as Iyengar yoga keeps offering me. And I smile in my mind—BINGO!—and see my new reverse way, honoring who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming.
Let me share my new smart way. From a yoga perspective, my reverse pathway scales like this:
In my 20s: I learned to do a handstand in the middle of the room.
In my 30s: I practiced my handstand using a wall as support.
In my 45s: I lost all my body wisdom and confidence; turning my body upside down was out of my practice due to life's shifts (pre-menopause).
In my golden age (60+): I do my handstand again, but in a new backward style—hands on the ground, and I am climbing my legs high up the wall again. It's the same pose, only in a different direction and I am there, steady, hanging down in my inversion pose, letting all chemical fluid detox complete my happiness for the day.
My new smart way allows me to practice gentle yoga for older adults, respecting my aging body, not pretending to be in my life's strongest bloom, but still confident in my pose moderation—getting the full healthy benefit for my inner organs and, mainly, my whole-connected brain. This new, actual reverse system will be applied to every single area of my life.
Thank you, Dee and Ty, for creating this workshop and letting me think deeply about how I can use this reverse list to get to a new high of life where the view will be magnificent.
The Unfinished Woman
In my new smart reverse way,I discovered how a reverse bucket list can transform my yoga practice, boost my happiness through life satisfaction, and help me embrace a mindful, aging-gracefully journey on and off the mat. I am a woman who hasn't reached her full potential yet! Not a better-behaved version of the same one. Someone with different standards, a lifestyle calendar that actually belongs to her, and one real thing she finished that she’ll point at for the rest of her life.
