My Journey to a Yoga Practice

I was drawn to yoga as a college student 13 years ago.  I was in a transitional time in my life and yoga offered some sort of refuge from the stress of the unknown.   On the floor of my dorm I perched a yoga book against the bed and began exploring yoga poses and what was exactly happening to me as I held each pose.  Sometimes in the simplicity of a pose I would find my mind wondering or bored.  Harder poses where I lacked strength or flexibility I would give up on or hold back on challenging my body.  But somewhere in between the limitations of my body and the chaos of my mind I found myself coming back to the practice especially when I felt “stressed”.  In the beginning just the act of shutting off the TV, turning on relaxing music, lighting a candle and maybe doing a handful of poses until I got bored or tired began to restore my mind and in turn relaxed my body.  Of course I judged this effort in not being enough.  I thought I “should” be doing an hour practice, I should go to more yoga classes, I should be more flexible, stronger, and whatever other “should” I come up with. 

But today I realize that what I did do was nurture the seed that I planted to begin a journey towards a yoga practice that would take me deeper physically, mentally and spiritually.  You have to start somewhere, and where I started didn’t have to look perfect, it didn’t have to be all or nothing.  If I could continue to commit to showing up even in the simplest way everyday, I would invest in myself and I would grow. 

Yoga continues to teach me to surrender my mind and body to be in the moment, to allow myself, with all of my limitations to be present, to hold the space for growth at my own pace. And just maybe today I will push past those limitations, maybe in micro movements or maybe in leaps, but all in the safety of acceptance of myself, of others and with the inner eye of awareness.   Today, that is the intention of my practice and as a teacher I honor and nurture that for my students.

As we enter into the New Year, spending time with family and friends and begin to prepare for all those new beginnings, it becomes ever so important to make the effort and the time for a yoga practice.  To quiet my mind of all my judgments of all the “shoulds"  in life, and connect with awareness, peace, acceptance, compassion, balance, strength, and all of the themes that a yoga practice connects me to on the mat,  so that I continue to carry that out to my life off of the mat. 

What draws you to a Yoga practice today?  What drew you to Yoga initially?  What does your practice give you?  I'd love to hear

Storytelling

I happen to be flipping through channels the other day and land on OWN (Oprah's network). I love Oprah! I see a commercial for one of her shows she has interviewing interesting people like Sydney Porter, Mya Angelou, and her other favorites where she is saying that "everyone has a story" and how it teaches us about ourselves. Its intriguing because it makes me think how her interviews really do uncover and honor people telling their story. The interest is hearing from others how their life struggles have made them who they are. And how their struggles really remind us how we can make it through our own.  But just like that, I go on not thinking any more about it.

Then today I was reading my book, "The Science of Spiritual Marketing".  The chapter I am on is The Power of Our Story. Which starts with a quote from a storyteller that says,

"What makes this act so powerful--for both the teller and the listener--is that we meet in the moment of the story and emerge acknowledging our kinship with all of Life.  Story reminds us that we are One."

The chapter relates storytelling to creating my business story. Sharing who I am and how I want people to experience what I have to give through my work and how that carries impact and attracts people to me.  Whoa! Totally overwhelmed to think that now my task would be to write out a story that offered some deep and meaningful journey to the mountain top of Yoga teaching (Which I am sure I've not actually made it to the top of yet).  So I put the book down and went to something else. Stories are great,when they are someone else's. "Mine are boring." I think to myself.

Ok so then tonight, scrolling through Facebook, a quote jumps out of no where, "Recognize your own story."  There it is again, "my story." Recognize my own story? My own story? My own story of what exactly?  Growing up, family traumas, spiritual growth, the good, the bad and the really, really ugly?  Is my story what I have done, accomplished, how my views have changed, what hurts me? Is it who I am today and how I thankfully am not who I was yesterday?  I have to think about this.  Who am I in relationship to my story? And what story is it that I would want to tell?

 I know I can go back and start rattling off my childhood, my high school awkwardness to flunking out of college so I could be free to roam the world.  My adventures of the naive 20 year old moving to Colorado by myself with $1,000 to my name and no where to live and the 13 years that passed since then.  Going back to college, car accidents, hurt relationships, hurt egos, and childbirth. Packing up my newborn infant to Texas, teaching Yoga, Reiki and now Pilates? Learning to let go sooner than later (biggie!), creating my own business, friendships and family adventures, learning to be comfortable in my own skin. All the twists and turns, the leaps of faith and the universal kicks off the cliff.  The spiritual adventures of learning (and still learning) how to manifest, how to have relationships, how to be a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife, a dog owner.  The moments when I walked away from the messy kitchen to go to the park instead and play with my daughter.  The first moments where I was terrified to teach a class, my voice shook when I spoke and I didn't move from my Yoga mat.  The moments when I trusted myself and it paid off.  The moments when I didn't and I learned better. The moments of fear that I faced and the moments of fear when I ran away.  The moments of not being able to get out of bed to the moments of pure laughter.  And the amazing thing is I still am living this story, it still evolves from here.  Those moments grow into new moments that are fertilized from the past.  I create my story with each day that I wake up to this life. And who would give up on their story? It is what made me who I am today and who I will become tomorrow.  So this story thing, I guess I will continue to recognize my story, how it changes and what I am creating it to be.