Last week in yoga class the instructor introduced this month’s mindfulness theme—she challenged us to greet everything with no opinion whatsoever. She didn’t even get the words out of her mouth before I had an opinion about her challenge not to have one.

Determined, I dismissed my initial opinion that there is NO WAY not to have an opinion, and opened myself up to the potential. She told us to try it out during our practice; to meet each pose with no opinion as to whether we could do it or not, whether it was painful or uncomfortable, and to just relax into it. This sounded like a solid plan and I relished the opportunity to open up my body to new possibilities by smashing the boundaries my opinions put on it.

The first 10 minutes were easy. As I stretched and limbered up, each time I felt a minor objection from a joint or a muscle, I gently reprimanded them for interrupting and moved on. When we moved into more challenging flow exercises, I continued to ignore my weak-minded limbs and gamely sweat it out with the rest of the group, doggedly erasing each thought that popped into my head, like, “My leg is about to fall off,” or “How does that bendy b*%ch in front of me DO that?”

By the end, though, I found myself in a full-on internal debate about whether the idea that it was hotter than balls in the studio was just my opinion or a straight-up fact. The pool of sweat surrounding me suggested fact.

After our savasana (the resting period), the instructor sent us out into the world, reminding us to try and greet everything without opinion; that true freedom can come from this practice. I almost made it to my car in this enlightened space when a Prius narrowly missed hitting me. Smugly, I chose not to have an opinion about this person’s lack of driving skills. On my short drive home I encountered more of these “road hazards” and felt fairly confident about labeling these observations as unmistakable facts rather than opinions.

I spent the rest of the day embroiled in an opinion-versus-fact debate and fell into bed exhausted, my mind still spinning. There were just too many indisputable facts surrounding me and I couldn’t figure out how I was supposed to find any peace and freedom in a world that ignores what is so painfully obvious to me.

I’ve realized since, as I’m sure you have by now, that my path to this particular enlightenment is going to be a lot tougher than I had anticipated. Opinions (read, judgments) often take the form of “fact” with me and I’ve got a long and humbling row to hoe to erase this thinking. I have promised myself (and I guess you now) that I can at least try and dial back my snap judgments and my opinions. My opinions, which have become my reality, are not fact, they are perception, and by blowing open some of my deep-seeded perceptions, my reality will broaden, which could be kind of fun. The more I can say, “Huh, Who knew?,” the more I’ll be able to open myself up to that freedom and joy my instructor speaks of, where things aren’t good or bad, they just are. And that’s a fact, Jack.