Memory lane

Today was the first day of the end of our time in saguenay. I have to say I slept wonderfully last night, better than I have in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, my sleep has been really good (due to yoga) but I was plagued by dreams of feelings of no control most nights, and if I didn’t have the dreams then I had the gnawing feeling that something was going to go wrong.

I quickly realized this morning that my life had changed drastically in a matter of 12 hours. These last few weeks I have been back at home, not working, and actually enjoying it. It was clear I was burnt out from teaching crazy hours, and so I took the time to take care of myself, do yoga, and finally enjoy cooking again. I got used to making plans on a whim, and spending a lot of time doing yoga in the morning since nothing pressing was waiting for me after practice. But today, I got on my mat thinking about the time. I tried to ignore it, but every so often it would break my concentration. Today was the first day of needing to get things done. We have lists of things to do before our HHT (house hunting trip) and things to do after. I must say we have done quite a good job at starting on the list of things to do before our HHT. But this has meant me saying good bye to extra long yoga, and making plans on a whim.

I visited many places that I had visited on our first few days in the region today – this was not on purpose – and even after the first reminder, each one after that was a sweet surprise. Periodically today my mind vividly went back to how I saw saguenay when we first moved here, and how I see it now.

We went to take care of some business on base, and were in a building I had been in with J on one of our first few days here. Up until today I couldn’t tell you which building we were in, not because I never saw it again (it’s actually beside where I teach on base) but because I was so disoriented then, that I had no idea whether I was even on base or not. But today as I walked down the halls it hit me, I’ve been here before. not only did I realize this, but I could vividly remember walking down the same hall with J and feeling so lost, and so out of place. Everyone was strange, their mannerisms were different, they all spoke a very odd version of French, and I felt like an alien. I had no idea what was going on, and I was on the verge of tears all day. All I wanted to do was to be walking down the streets of Winnipeg again where everything made sense.

Today I realized that the place that had seemed so scary and strange has become so mundane. I walk or drive passed this building almost every day. I worked beside it for three years, and the people and the language are not so strange any longer (well ok some of the mannerisms will never make sense to a friendly Manitoban but still they are mundane now). The comparison of vividly remembering my very first time on base to today was remarkable. And it was not the only instance today where I was taken back.

We went out for dinner tonight to the hotel which we stayed in when we first arrived in saguenay. I remember the first meal I had here. Today as we waited to pay our bill I saw the door I had walked in from (that leads to the hotel rooms) and I remember walking in and feeling like an outsider. I remember seeing the restaurant from a city girl’s point of view, and wondering why they chose such dramatic decor. I again remember feeling helpless and lost because the menu looked terrifying in French, and I couldn’t order for myself. I also remember looking out the window and not being impressed with the amount of big box stores that lined the main boulevard. Of course I have since learned that there is so much more to saguenay than this one boulevard, and many decent restaurants (including the one we went to tonight). But again I was struck by the vividness of my memory. The ability to compare who I was then to who I am now.

It’s amazing how much has changed. I came here feeling scared and alone with no girlfriends to speak of. I am leaving here frantically trying to find time for everyone and everything. I came here with preconceptions and judgements, and I am leaving with a new sense of self. Instead of closing off this strange world I learned to live around it. I learned to find happiness where I believed there was none because I expanded my definition of what happiness meant.

This reminds me of my intention this week which I haven’t written about yet. Trust. We will always find ourselves in new and maybe scary situations, and they might at times seem like they will defeat us (like my first few days here in saguenay) but we need to trust that everything will work out in the end. That maybe one day we would be one of the many strangers walking the sidewalks going to work, seeming like they belong here and not an alien (or at least feeling like one).

Instead of hiding behind fear, we need to step out of our comfort zone and trust that even if we fall down, we’ll be ok. We can get back up and try again, we can learn to do something a little differently. We can think outside the box. Trust is often confused with hope. But hope runs beside fear, it runs beside no control. Trust allows you to get your control back by choosing a new way.

I realized today that in these last four years, I made this place my home because I learned to trust myself. I may not have seen it most times, and I may have fallen victim of leaning too much on hope sometimes (hope that we’d get out of here) but every time I fell down, every time I went home crying because I felt so lost I learned to get back up. And because of that trust I leave here much stronger than when I came. Today I realized how much I have grown. And how important my experiences here will be in forming the person that I am becoming.

Trust in your own power, don’t hope for a better tomorrow, trust that you alone can make today great.

This is a long time coming but ….

I was suppose to be leaving for India tomorrow at 10 am.  Notice that I used the past tense.  For the last two months J and I have been sitting on something, not daring to talk about it, or mention it to anyone, out of fear that it wouldn’t come true.

Two months ago I had to make a hard decision, a decision I was reluctant to make.  I had to postpone my trip to India. For those of you that have been following me this whole time you know there would be nothing that would stop me from going, but there is one thing, the reason this blog started in the first place.

I started this blog as a military wife, not a yogini.  I started doing yoga at home, but had no intention to do yoga every single day, I was instead planning to move.  I was planning to finally leave a place that was quickly becoming old.  We had moved here four years ago, with the promise that in two years we’d be posted outside Canada.  Two years went, three, then four with many posting being given and taken away from us:

Colorado 2011 – cancelled

Halifax 2011 – cancelled

Germany 2012 – cancelled

Washington 2012 – cancelled

Belgium 2012 – turned down

Belgium 2012 – posted

Notice Belgium is on there twice.  We had been given the opportunity to go in May, but had turned it down due to too many responsibilities at the time.  In August the posting was offered to us again, and we figured who were we to turn down a posting, we decided to go for it.

At first, I didn’t really care about the posting because I was gong to India – so even if this was a flop I still had something to look forward to. But as the weeks went by I began to think about the logistics of the situation.

It really hit me when we began that screening process (if we are viable candidates for an outside Canada posting).  I remembered being in the same waiting room that I was sitting in at the military hospital in 2011 for our Colorado posting, and I remembered how much time it took to organize a move outside of Canada. I was on the phone constantly, stressed, and most importantly I was needed for the process to occur – signatures, papers to fill out, responsibilities that I had to take care of – that being away wasn’t an option then – and slowly it dawned on me – I couldn’t be away for this time either.  I had to make a decision without knowing the outcome.  I couldn’t hold off cancelling my teacher training because I had to cancel my plane ticket and my visa application as well – both were time sensitive.  So I had to make a decision.

I have to admit making that decision was very hard to make.  But once I realized it, I did it as quickly as I could before I lost my nerve.  The next few days were filled with anxiety, depression, and a sense of no control.

However, as the process proceeded I realized that there was a chance that we would be posted.  I also came to terms with the fact that just because I wasn’t going in October, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going. I had moved my teacher training to February and so this was not a lost cause.

The fact of the matter is, we can plan all we want, but life happens.  We tend to see disappointments as the end-all of everything (at least I do).  When Germany was cancelled I couldn’t see to the future and be ok with the fact that we would be posted eventually, all I saw was the four walls of this PMQ (military housing) that closed in on me. Life has a funny way of working itself out. I may not be going to India tomorrow, but this year was not a waste.  I have learned a lot about yoga and myself (and continue to do so).  I dare to say that I feel I have gained a lot by staying here for the extra year.   I have learned to stand up to adversity, and to find the positive in all situations. I learned that happiness comes from within, not from where you live or how you life.  I learned to take control and if there was no yoga here I would create my own yoga space. That was not a waste of time. I feel that I am standing taller and stronger than I have ever done before, I owe that, and so much more, to my challenge on getting on my mat every day this year.

While in the next few days the people who I had planned to do my teacher training with will be arriving in India, it was not my time to go now.  Now, my time is here planning our move, and I am definitely ok with that!

What is your life? (I heart yoga)

I read an article this morning that asked the question what is your life? I closed my eyes and my answer was clear in my mind: yoga.

Here is what I mean:

I realized something today. I had a strong practice this morning (I’ll get to that in a bit) I was in the middle of a vinyasa and it occurred to me, I was moving through it with fluidity, strength, following each breath – I was in fact doing yoga and in the moment. It occurred to me just how far I had come. A few months ago doing a full vinyasa with full plank (adho mukha svanasana), four limbed staff pose (chaturanga dandasana), and upward facing dog (urdhva mukha svanasana), each pose in a single inhale or exhale was impossible.

A few months ago, I felt like I needed a break during plank to catch my breath, during chaturanga, as I exhaled, I felt like my life was escaping through my breath, and in upward dog (when I did attempt it) I couldn’t inhale all the way, instead frantically trying to get some air into my lungs.

Today, and lately in general, my practice has been strong. Not only that, but I have learned (although reluctantly at first) to listen to my body. Yesterday, I wanted to do wheel/upward bow (urdhva danurasana) twice (it was not in my sequence but my mind was hell-bent on doing that pose again). I finished my first, sat in savasana for a couple of breaths and began to do it again, but my upper body would not budge from my mat, I laid back down and was about to try again when I listened to my body, I knew in that moment, I wasn’t going to do wheel again that day, and I was ok with that. I listened and I had a great practice. Today I listened and I learned that each practice is a great practice, and my mind, my soul, and my body are getting stronger every day.

Each morning I begin my day with a cup of lukewarm water and half a lemon squeezed into it.

I sit in silence (literally alone even my cat thinks it’s too early to get out of bed) and immediately open to a wonderful book: “Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the path of yoga” written by Rolf Gates. I say immediately because the book is on my ipad, and I make it a point to not open facebook or email until after my yoga practice (this is very hard to do but I’ve managed not to). I read a chapter of this book (each chapter is about a page or two, and is reflection of a thought, a yama, an experience or a lesson). I use the chapter as my intention as it pertains to me in my life that day. After reading the chapter, I reread it, this time highlighting words/sentences that get me thinking. I then shut off my ipad and finish my lemon water, reflect, and prepare myself for my practice.

Today’s reading reminded me of my yoga off the mat challenge I had done in May, more specifically on my practice of sauca (mental purity – no complaining or gossiping) and samaskaras (mindless behaviour and practicing staying focused and mindful of my actions and thoughts). It reminded me of these things because the chapter was about speaking the truth. Both, noticing and attempting to change our mindless behaviours and sauca, pertain to our own truths. By not complaining or gossiping we begin to actually say what we truly feel, or what we truly want to say, rather than hide behind the ugly masks of complaining and gossiping. Furthermore, coming to terms with our mindless behaviours (such as going on facebook, procrastinating for no reason other than we are lazy …) brings us to our truth, that we are stronger than what we believe, and if we attempt to change these behaviours we find our strength and learn to actually enjoy every moment, and be happy with ourselves. There were some ideas in my reading this morning that reminded me just how far I have come with yoga.

“little by little we notice, and then drop, our old habits of embellishment, minimization, self-aggrandizement, omission, rationalization, and exaggeration”

“an intimacy develops with our own truth. Ultimately our truth becomes all there is”

Today’s practice I focused on my personal truth, to always express it. The practice was magical (sorry for the corniness but seriously that is the best word to describe it). Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect, but that’s what was magical. It was honest, it was my truth, my voice shining through each posture. I felt connected to my breath throughout the practice, and even felt more alive than any other given moment, it was wonderful.

At one point, as I was getting into pigeon pose – a variation to one-legged king pigeon pose (, Eka Pada Rajakapotasana),

it dawned on me, my practice (each and every one of them) was beautiful, yoga has opened up my consciousness and my heart. I realized my heart was truly open to every experience, every fall, every satisfied attempt at a pose, and through out my whole life. In that moment, my eyes welled up and I realized yoga is my world. This sounds crazy I know, and a few months ago if someone had said this to me I probably would have smacked them over the head (in a loving way) and told them to get a grip, but I am not kidding here, I heart yoga!

My peak pose today was camel (ustrasana).

I have a love hate relationship with this pose. I love it because its difficult to do and getting into it is an accomplishment, but I hate it because I know I could improve it. So I made a sequence dedicated to preparing for camel. At first I really didn’t want to do the sequence, but I made myself get on my mat and decided to not be gripped by my fear, and to not expect perfection either. I instead, allowed the sequence, my asanas to lead me and decided whatever happened, happened. But with this intention in mind, an amazing thing happened, I realized that I just knew that I could do the pose. It wasn’t that I was incapable before, I just found it hard and so I would give up and not push my hips forward. But while in my practice as camel came nearer and nearer, I just knew, once I got there I would do it, and you know what? I did. I had no stress, no worries about my back, no tension in my neck, I was relaxed and focused. Today was one of the strongest practices I have ever had.

During my practice this morning, as I moved from asana to asana it occurred to me that I was not afraid any longer. I don’t mean that I have no fears, that is definitely not the case, put me in some skis at the edge of a mountain and you will see me tremble with fear, but my fear isn’t crippling me any longer. If I am going to be completely honest here, I should tell you a secret. I haven’t told anyone this (except for J) but I have been practicing supported headstand (salamba sirsasana) prep almost every day. This (and some other poses) have been fears that I didn’t even want to acknowledge a few weeks ago. But ever since my experience on vacation of forcefully getting upside down, I have made it my mission to face this fear every time I get on my mat. I don’t know if I will ever fully do a headstand, and frankly that is not my goal, my goal is to listen and learn and see my world from a new perspective (in this case upside down).

I read something this morning that explains this shift in my mind. These ideas come from the article “Five things we can learn from our mistakes” by Sylvia Mordini. People often come to the mat seeking answers, but what people don’t realize (including myself) is that the asanas are not the answers, they are the questions. Each asana shows us where we need to realign our values, our beliefs, and our fears. By testing ourselves in the postures (by going a little further, trying a more advanced version, attempting a headstand, or dedicating a sequence on a pose that brought out fear in the past) we begin to realign our thoughts and behaviours. Each leap into the unknown brings us that much closer to our truth.

Here are the things we can learn from our postures, what questions are they answering:

1. holding back and staying in your comfort zone – how do you hold yourself back in your life?

2. getting angry and upset at yourself for falling or making mistakes – do you put yourself down in your mind and hold yourself to being perfect?

3. allow the ego to take over the practice – (look above)

4. blame those around you for falling – do you blame the world, traffic, long lines … for your “troubles”?

5. stand around and watch everyone else do the pose – do you watch others live their life and wish you could do the things they do but do nothing to make yourself happy?

6. live with regret for not attempting to reach for your intentions (look above)

In the past (and I’m sure some of them will creep up on me again) I have done all of these things at one point or another, on and off the mat.

Here are the five things we learn from our mistakes:

1. release your addiction to fear – move forward into the unknown with a positive perspective.

2. let go of regrets – forgiveness

3. find solutions more quickly – think outside the box

4. be less critical and less judgmental – accept yourself and others as they are

5. learn to not give up at first sign of discomfort or failure – believe in yourself

At one point or another I have learned and known these things in my heart on and off the mat.

I have a had a particularly hard week this week. I don’t want to, and will not, go into the details as to why it was difficult, let’s just say I had to face some harsh realities about life this week and try with all of my might to find understanding, balance, and lessons throughout these experiences. In the midst of all this, there was something nagging at me. A knowledge that everything would be ok, and that I had it in me to get through this. With the disappointment of not getting posted again, and many other things, I knew deep in my bones that I was where I was meant to be. Today I read a quote that highlighted wonderfully the nagging feeling I had all week while my mind felt lost and confused:

“may today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us” Mother Theresa

(I am planning on leading a class one day and beginning the practice with this quote – I will dedicate a whole practice to this because I wholeheartedly believe we can all find this truth on our mats).

My truth had been speaking to my in my gut all week but I was unsure what to make of it. I wrote a post about it earlier on in the week “Ahimsa” where I began to explore the ideas that were brewing in my soul. This morning it was as if, it all became clear in my practice, and I just knew I was on the right path and that not only would i get through this but that I had it in me to grow from this experience, my questions would be answered because I continued to hold my head high amongst the chaos, I didn’t allow fear to hold me down, I moved through life (as in each asana) with positivity.

I realize this post is quite me-centred and I struggled whether to post it or not, but I truly believe that if you are reading this I might just spark something inside of you to grab onto a belief, feeling, or knowledge that has been nagging at you and maybe you too can begin to create happiness in your life. So I leave you with this question: What is your life?

The scariness of goodbye

What scares me more than anything is that every time he leaves, it gets harder and harder to say good bye.

I thought our first good bye was hell. We had been dating for six months, and he went off to Afghanistan. I had no idea what it meant to have someone you cared about in that kind of environment. I had no idea what my every day life would be like. Would I be able to function knowing he was in constant danger? Would we be ok as a couple having spent six months together and now six months apart? Would anyone understand what my life had turned into?

Obviously we got through it. And there have been many more good byes since. But each time we say it, each time we both look at each other knowing, it’s time, my heart aches.

This is because, I know this is less time together in the amount of time we have been given in this life. I know there will be nights that I won’t be able to sleep and I’ll watch episode after episode of Seinfeld hoping to either laugh or begin dreaming. I know there will be moments in the morning, when I first open my eyes, and I will have forgotten that I am alone, and slowly as I turn to hug him I’ll remember he is gone and the sinking feeling will quickly take the place of happiness, and I won’t want to get out of bed.

Today as he left, I realized that it was harder. As I watched him prepare and pack his car I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he is, how smart and wonderful. I wanted to implant the memory of him preparing his motorcycle on the trailer, in all of his manliness, the man I love, I wanted to remember each word, each breath, each blink of his eyes, and more than anything I didn’t want to have to say good bye.

Of course, on my good days when time apart is a far away event I’d tell you that the time away is great, i focus on my own things, we miss each other, and the homecoming is beyond words. We remember the wonderful things that we can’t live without, when on a regular day these same qualities are easily forgotten. We grow as a couple and become strong under dyer circumstances of being apart, but it hurts to see him go. It hurts to say good bye.

The realization that it gets harder and harder each time scares me so much. I think this is because I know what it’s like to say the final good bye to someone you love, and if it hurts knowing I will see him again, what will that feel like? I don’t even want to go there.

Today, before he left, I had a meeting at work, and as I sat there, I realized the time I had told J I would be home had passed. I panicked. I tried my hardest to keep my cool (my boss was talking very slowly) but inside me all I could think about was I have to go home and say goodbye. After the meeting was finally over, I rushed home (or I should say tried, isn’t it always the case when you desperately want to get somewhere everything and everyone gets in your way?) Thankfully, I didn’t miss him. However, the thought of J leaving without us saying good bye to one and other was just unthinkable. I am sure for him, he would have shrugged it off, assumed I got caught up in the meeting, and he’d see me in a few weeks, not the same for me.

I must remember to be grateful for these feelings, because they are the few of many indications of how wonderful our relationship is. I remember a time in my recent past believing I would never find anything like this, and J has surpassed so many expectations ( I guess I should include myself in there since without me there would be no relationship.) We often take the people in our lives for granted, and these good byes, while are not very pleasant as far as my heart is concerned, remind me how lucky we are. This is not good bye, and until I see you again, you are in my heart and I will cherish you always.

Please, for me, remember the many things you love about someone in your life, and tell them, because for awhile I won’t be able to, and if I could I’d write it in the sky.

Be your authentic self

We often think of karma as something outside ourselves. If you do good, good will come to you. But recently I’ve realized, karma is a little different than what I thought.

I’ve talked about this before, but it seems I haven’t learned my lesson. You see, we are given lessons in our lives, this is our karma, if we choose to ignore them, they will continue to occur until we listen. If we learn to listen, we learn our lesson, and we move forward in life.

Recently, we had an opportunity to move. I have been trying to write about it for days, but the post never seemed authentic, I couldn’t figure out why. After all of this time I still found myself complaining, angry, upset, and frustrated at the bad timing, and missed opportunity. I thought I had learnt my lessons, I couldn’t figure out why this was happening to us again.

Then I read something. Actually I read a lot of things. The first was about lessons on the mat. Why do we do yoga? Aside from the physical benefits, I decided to do yoga to deal with my demons, to learn to defeat them. But is that the point? If we had no demons, if we defeated them, what would that mean? We would be enlightened? Is that the point? I don’t think so. I don’t think we are meant to defeat them.

This has to be one of the more famous yoga quotes: “yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured, and endure what cannot be cured”. I ignored this quote for a long time. I would read it, and immediately not like it. I didn’t get it. I wanted to cure everything, I wanted to step off my mat one day and float, be happy, find peace. I wanted karma to start paying off because I felt like it owed me big time. So enduring anything that wasn’t curable was out of the question, my demons were curable and I would defeat them all, to hell with the quote. I didn’t pin in, I never posted it, I never thought of it, I ignored it. I also ignored all of my negative thoughts.

For days I’ve been trying to write this, I’ve been trying to find a meaning as to how we got offered a posting at the worst possible moment ever. As I put it in one of my lowest moments these last few days “this is worse than if I were 8 months pregnant and we were posted”. I got angry, I told karma to go fuck herself, and I locked myself up in my little house and prayed the world I live in would just go away. Yoga became a mindless act, I did it, but I didn’t feel anything, I couldn’t find an intention, I was completely lost.

Then two days ago, I had a get together with some of my friends in the evening. I knew I had to get my act together before then. I rolled out my mat, I got into child’s pose and I listened. I breathed and listened to what my heart was telling me.

Here is a little retelling of the myriad of thoughts that went through my head (what I can remember anyway)

This is not me. If I go down this road what does this mean, yoga is nothing? I know better than this. Be your authentic self. What the fuck does that mean?

I looked deeper.

I’m happy, not because of where I live, but because I have love. Why do I feel so crummy then? Be your authentic self.

That line Be your authentic self kept repeating itself over and over again in my head. I decided to go with it and do my yoga. I breathed, I moved slowly, methodically, and I listened. As I expressed myself in my poses I realized something, when I was complaining, negative, hating Saguenay and blaming it for all of my troubles, I was sad. When I complained to J about our life here I felt like we were miles a part, my voice sounded far away in my own ears. As I did yoga, I realized that when I did all of these things, I wasn’t being my authentic self. When I complained, when I blamed the outside for my worries, when I didn’t say what I felt and pushed J further and further away from understanding my feelings, I was silencing my true voice.

I believed that if I did yoga, I would rid my body of all of my demons. Some I can, like negative thoughts, but they don’t go away forever and yoga is not going to solve my problems. My negative thoughts will still be there waiting for the opportunity I decide to silence my authentic self again. What yoga does, is teach us to listen to the deeper voice within, to find happiness within. Yoga connects our outer world with our inner world. by connecting our inner selves with the world we learn to see things from a new perspective. We are already perfect, our life is already perfect. I had merely been enduring this place until we left, still after all of these months of living yoga. I was positive sometimes, but more often than not, I caught myself saying something negative about Saguenay still. I was fooling myself in believing that I was conquering these demons on the mat.

J and I not being posted again, was not some really bad karmic joke being played on us, it was a lesson I had to learn. Happiness will not magically come when we leave this place, happiness is already here and until I learn to see this, I will continuously be silencing myself. Karma is not just a consequence of what we do to others or the world around us, it’s what we do to ourselves as well. If we remain angry and negative to the world around us, we will continually face the same “obstacles” to happiness over and over again. I put obstacles in quotes because we perceive these as obstacles but they are not. In order to find happiness we must look within ourselves, we must listen to our authentic self. If we continue to ignore these “things that keep happening to us over and over” or if like me, we fool ourselves into believing we can rid our minds and our souls of negativity, we will continuously face the same situations over again.

Yoga doesn’t teach us to live as super humans who are immune to the full spectrum of human emotions: love, hate, happiness, anger, sadness … it teaches us to see these emotions from a new perspective. It teaches us that we need not be ruled by them, that deep inside we can find calmness, content, happiness, and we can learn to express this new perspective through our emotions. This, our authentic self, helps us see the lessons that karma brings us, and this, our authentic self, helps us remember that we’ve been here before, but we weren’t listening. It helps us realize that our demons while cannot be defeated, will not defeat us, as long as we stay true to ourselves, and find happiness within.

Pass the mike to your mentor

Pass the mike to your mentor.

What does this mean to you?

I’ve talked about this before, we often allow our ego to steal the mike, but we can just as easily pass the mike to our mentor, our true self.

Like I said, I’ve talked about this before, but sometimes we need to be reminded of the basics.

One of the first things I learned on the mat was to leave the ego at the door. The word ego refers to the pessimist that lives in all of us, which tells us that we are not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we don’t know what we’re doing, and countless other things. It can also be the competitor, the part of us that forgets what yoga is, a focus within. This voice is learned from our environment. So if you were constantly told that you weren’t good enough, then you will most likely have a voice that tells you just that.

My voice told me I wasn’t good enough, and that I was stupid, this culminated into the question: who could love you then? I compared myself to others on the mat, and when i didn’t measure up, the ego would yell into the mike. I defined myself from the outside in, and so when I was rejected, my ego laughed at me into the mike: “I told you!”. I refer to my ego as the sabotager, because it manages to sabotage everything I do – when it has the mike that is.

I have a confession to make. The sabotager always visits near the end of vacation. I unconsciously will sabotage the end of a trip because I am sad it’s ending. This is a recent phenomenon, one I believe occurs because on a basic level I’m not thrilled to live in northern Quebec especially since we were only suppose to be there for two years.

Yes, I have worked through these issues, and I have found happiness where before I believed there was none. But every once in a while the sabotager likes to steal the mike, and I need a reminder of how to get back.

This morning I woke up with a pit in my stomach, we’re on our last week of vacation, and when we get back we have a week before things go nuts. J leaves to Kingston Ontario for some training for a month in August, and before then we need to get my papers organized for India. After his time in Kingston in August, I meet him there for a last moment of bliss before we are apart for six months. I am hoping this last stint in Ontario will be a yoga retreat – working on finding the best fit for both of us at the moment. But I know after this week everything will happen really fast and before I know it J will be gone in Africa and I will be in India, so the sabotager has paid a little visit.

Last night I had the first realization that J is being deployed. This always happens, he tells me, and I have no reaction for a long time. Then out of no where, with no indication it hits me and I feel real fear, raw fear, the nothing you can do about fear. It happened driving home after our last real sushi dinner before we both head to our own corners of the east. I suddenly got the all familiar panic and fear that accompany moments like this, and it hasn’t gone away.

Instead I allowed it to take hold of me and it manifested into something big and altogether different from where it started.

It manifested into fear of going to India, am I cut out for it? Fear of going back home to northern Quebec where so many things are missing (real and good sushi being one of them) and where I will be alone once again.

Fear. My sabotager, my ego.

Before yoga this morning I had a really hard time getting myself out of fear’s hold, actually I failed at it. I had a longing to not go back home, as if remaining on vacation could keep my ego away, but what I hadn’t realized was that it was my ego holding onto this false reality.

I know the true reality, I just forgot it in that moment. The true reality is life (or happiness) is everywhere, we have a choice in every situation. We can choose to remain in fear’s hold, or we can choose to breathe, be in the moment, and allow our perception to grow, then we find life.

I tried explaining my predicament to J but failed miserably, and this is where my lowest point came. After he left the room to get ready for yoga, and after my failed attempt to communicate what I was feeling, I muttered the phrase “you are so stupid” to myself. I hadn’t done that in a long time, and right when I said it a huge weight was put on my heart.

In today’s yoga class I was reminded of my path. I had read about what it means to remain in our practice on and off the mat earlier this morning, and when it came time to set my intention, it was to find my path, my practice once again.

The instructor’s words really hit home : give the mike to your mentor, take it away from the ego. I realized as she said this while in downward dog, that it’s ok that I had these feelings, but I could make the choice to not be ruled by them. As we began a more vigorous part of practice we were asked to do a one-legged vinyasa.

For those that don’t know here is what a basic vinyasa consists of:

By one-legged I mean, from downward dog, keep one leg extended and get into plank, move into chaturanga (low push up), then into upward dog and back to downward dog, all on one leg.

The first set, I didn’t want to do. I believed that I couldn’t, but I made myself do it, however I didn’t do upward dog, instead replacing it with cobra (similar to upward dog but with the legs firmly on the ground, so only the upper body lifts), because I didn’t believe in myself. This is after two weeks of having replaced cobra with upward dog in each and every vinyasa in yoga practice.

The second set, I wasn’t going to do at all, I was going to bring my leg down and do an easy vinyasa, but as I was deciding this the instructor said “do it because you know you can, you’re amazing” And so I lifted my leg and I did it fully, replacing cobra with upward dog, and I felt amazing.

It’s these choices that we forget when we are in the grip of our fear, our ego. We get caught in a web of lies, that we are not good enough, strong enough, we will not make it through, and so we remain in the hold, we remain lifeless. I broke the hold today because I gave the mike to my mentor, I took it away from fear. It’s not hard to do, once you make the choice, once you see that there is in fact a choice, you’re already there. It’s the realization that takes time, but don’t give up because we all have our own mentor in our hearts, and once she has the mike, fear is a thing of the past and life’s possibilities become endless.

I can’t say that J going to Africa isn’t stressful, but I remember now, that I have been here before, and I got through it. I remember love not fear. I also can’t say that going to India for three months isn’t scary, but it’s my path, and I am ready for the challenge. I remember my path, not fear. I also know that I have a well of strength to fall back on, and a well of knowledge to gain from both experiences, and so now these are the things that drive me, not fear. I gave the mike to my mentor and now she whispers strength from my head to my toes.

Why I get on my mat everyday

J asked me the other day why I practice yoga every day. I didn’t know how to respond. It’s not that I don’t have an answer, but it’d hard to put into words.After practice this morning it made sense.

Before yoga I had no idea what it meant to be whole. If you asked me I would have told you that I was whole. I was healthy, I exercised, I took care of myself. But I saw my body as parts. My arms were weak and slightly too short, my legs were bulky compared to my upper body, my hair was too curly and wild … .

With yoga I learned not only to be grateful for my health, my body, and my life, but it made me whole. I learned to work with my whole body to get into postures, I learned to synchronize my body, this is from someone who couldn’t synchronize her body enough to ski, or even walk on ice. I learned to trust my body.

A good friend of mine said something to me the other day that has remained in my mind. Yoga is life. Each morning when I get on my mat yoga helps bring me back to the centre of my life. It allows me to see just how wonderful the wold is. Listening to the waves this morning served as a mediation throughout my practice. But I don’t think we need to be at the ocean to feel this connection. The connection is always there, and when we find it, we become a part of it, yoga is a way to do this. We become connected to the life force that connects us all. Yoga helps me remember this each time I practice.

Yes it is awesome exercise and a wonderful challenge (especially now that I made it a goal to learn inversions), but these are just rewards. For the real goal in yoga is to open ourselves up to the connection that links the whole world. Yoga is life. As I look out into the ocean writing this, I see that now. I also see that without yoga, without connection, there is no life. When we, or the world become discomnected we can see it. When I’m disconnected, I feel lost, I have aches and pains, I am depressed, and I can’t find my purpose, or if I do it’s unattainable in my mind. If we become disconnected from Mother Earth we see this too. The recent floods in Canada and India. Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, the list goes on. We have become disconnected from ourselves, from each other, and therefore from the world. Yoga helps us find this connection once again. I see that now. Yoga is everything, it’s in everything, and it links us all.

Often times in yoga we hear the instructions “use your core strength” for many of us this means using our abs, our back, our pelvis. But it means more. Using your core strength is physical, but it is also spiritual. Connect with yourself, your true SELF, from there you will find your path or purpose. In yoga we can connect to our self in our poses to help us stand stronger, in the fullest expression of the pose that we can muster, with this inner strength we find the ability to tap into our physical strength. It’s all connected. Without the inner strength or confidence we can’t stand fully in the posture. If we don’t concentrate and remain inward, focusing on our own strength we wobble out of balancing poses, we believe we can’t do a pose, we slack where we know we can go deeper.

I remember when I started yoga, I used to slack all the time, in a lot of poses. Even mountain for instance.

I didn’t understand how standing, tail bone tucked, weight on the heels, shoulders back, heart open, looking forward and chin slightly up would help me at all in my practice. It hurt standing that way, it was uncomfortable and I felt like I couldn’t breath, so I would slack. I wasn’t connected with my true self at all then and it showed in all of my postures. Now, with time and dedication, I don’t slack, I go all the way, I push past my comfort zone, past the barriers I put up and find my centre.

I lost that a few days ago. The stress of walking into a yoga studio, and meeting all sorts of yogis, the interruption to my silent practice, led to a lot of confusion. I stepped into a world that I was unfamiliar with, and all of my controlled variables I had put in place in my practice were being tested. At first I failed, I broke against the pressure, and at times I slacked. These last few days I was able to find my centre again, going upside down helped. Now my practice whether overlooking the ocean or in the hot room is a moving meditation. By focusing inward, and linking myself to my core I was able to concentrate and even go deeper in poses I hadn’t been able to deepen at home. It didn’t matter that before class the hot room was a social gathering place (in Canada the studios I went to at least, the yoga room is a silent place of meditation and reflection), it didn’t matter that there was music playing through out practice (I actually learned to appreciate the rhythm) and it didn’t matter if I couldn’t fully express the pose like the person beside me. The practice, was not about all of that. My practice is about finding peace in the midst of chaos, my chaos, or the chaos that often surrounds me living a military life, or life in general.

So why do I practice yoga every day? Because on my mat I’m reminded just how beautiful and strong my body is. It’s not a collection of flawed parts, its beautiful in its uniqueness and it is the means in which my soul communicates with the world. It is a way to connect my core with the world around me. On my mat I find peace and love, strength and compassion, lightness and darkness. On my mat I find life.

It’s the first day of summer, a perfect day to look back on the past six months!

Six months ago I decided to make some changes. J and I had found out that once again the Canadian Military’s promises were worthless, our posting had been cancelled (for the fourth time). Up until that point in my life as a military wife (and before at times) I had defined my world from an outside perspective. I allowed outside forces to determine whether I was happy. I always looked to the past or future to when I was, or would finally be, content or happy. The present, in my mind, was full of stress and worry.

I knew, when J came with the news late in December that our posting had been cancelled, that I had a choice to make. At first, while he was at home for lunch, I showed no emotion, I tried to be as strong and positive as I could for him. But once he left, I knew there was sadness and anger boiling up inside me. I tried to ignore it, but couldn’t. So I decided to give it it’s five minutes of fame. I sat down, put on the saddest song I knew: breaking down by Florence and the Machine, and I let myself cry.

Here is a link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx0IMHco81I

It is also another song on my India playlist – to remind me of that day. It’s ok to breakdown, as long as you come back stronger.

I cried, and cried. After about five minutes of this (it was a bit longer but no more than fifteen) I needed to find a way to stop. I decided to count to ten, and once I reached ten I would stop crying and move on from this disappointment. It’s not that I didn’t have anymore pain inside, because I definitely did. But I also knew that I couldn’t allow myself to continue to cry, and I also couldn’t ignore it. Both of these outcomes would have led to anger, negativity, and never being in the moment. However, by giving myself that fifteen minutes of sheer disappointment, I acknowledged those feelings. By letting go, we find peace.

The act of counting to ten was therapeutic. I was crying, but with no end in sight, no way to change my circumstances. The act of counting brought me closer to the realization I needed, with each number I came that much closer.

 

That cry changed my life. As I counted I knew at 10 I would need to stop. And slowly something began to change inside me. I had a thought, why not live in the moment? I’m here for another year. I could fall victim to negativity and J and I could feed off of our respective angers and disappointments, or I could move on and let it be. I chose to move on, and instead of writing about our posting (as I was doing on a previous blog before this point), i decided to do something else. I decided to dedicate 2013 to yoga. I would get on my mat every day, and let yoga do what it wanted and needed in order to change my perspective. In other words, I became yoga’s bitch.

Why did I do this?

The fact that I understood that I needed to cry, and the realization that if I didn’t let these feelings out they would manifest into something uncontrollable, all came from yoga. They all came from me getting on my mat and getting to know myself. And so, I dedicated this year to yoga. Before this year, I got on my mat when I could. I had periods of intense yoga (like my summer of yoga last year) but nothing like this year.

I made a pact with myself to do yoga every day, even if it was for half an hour. To go beyond my comfort zone, and let yoga do what it wants with me, what it must in order for me to learn. On days that I couldn’t do yoga (sickness, fatigue, or my mandatory one day no yoga I gave myself) I meditate. Bottom line, whether I meditate or do yoga, every day I take out time to get on my mat. I take out time to reflect on my life, to challenge myself in yoga, and learn.

Six months in, and the changes are not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, nothing really, but I also doubted that this much could change. Not only has my whole outlook on life and facing life’s problem’s changed, but:

-I am also going to India to complete a 500hr Yoga Teacher Training course

-I have done a 108 Sun Salutations salute to spring which was so rewarding and eye opening

-I have practiced all sorts of yoga: Bikram, Moksha, Ashtanga, streamed sequences, and sequences I made all on my own

-My lifestyle has changed – I eat healthier, I recently gave up meat, there is no longer the mandatory chocolate in my freezer

-I have taken yoga off of the mat and began using concentration, meditation, breathing, and positive thinking through out my life.

-I am doing postures I never dreamed that I would do: crow (still a work in progress), bound side angle pose, warrior I, hand to toe pose, standing head to knee pose, half moon pose, toe stand, I am jumping from downward dog to forward fold (yay!!) the list goes on and on.

In other words yoga went from being a physical exercise, to a vital part of my day, and a vital tool in healing and staying centered in my life.

Before this pact its not that I didn’t do yoga, but I didn’t live it, even on my mat. I was constantly berating myself for not being able to do something, I was afraid of trying anything new because in my mind my body couldn’t be trusted to protect me if I fell, and I didn’t even see my body as a whole but as pieces that couldn’t work together. My thoughts were consumed by negativity, always looking to a better future, and anger. In other words, my ego, doubt, and negativity ruled my life.

I have thought a lot this month of what i would write concerning my journey on this half way point. I even made notes, but they didn’t feel real. This morning, on my mat, was the expression I was looking for, what I was trying to say came out in my yoga practice – not through words but the beauty and peace that has become my yoga practice.

I wish you could have been there, but a description will have to suffice. I practiced a new peak practice this morning. My peak poses were king dancer’s pose and wheel.

This is an image of full king dancer’s pose (Natarajarasana). I cannot do it fully, and I knew this when creating the sequence. My goal was not to prefect it, but to see whether with proper preparation, I could go further into the pose. While I am able to rotate one arm (same side as the raised leg on each leg) I cannot do the other arm as well, my back is not flexible enough to do that back bend. However, I did notice that today my back leg was able to go further than ever before, and my pose in general was stronger.

The other peak pose I used today was wheel Urdhva Danurasasana:

I have never done this pose, I have only attempted it once before, and I didn’t like it, nor could I do it. Today was a test run. I watched a video which instructed step by step how to get into the pose and decided I would try. There are three steps to getting into this pose:

on your back, feet on the ground, palms facing down above your head, lift your pelvic area.

From here exhale and while inhaling lift your shoulders off the ground, with the top of your head still on the mat.

From here (and this is the part I couldn’t do) exhale and while inhaling lift your chest up exhale and get into the posture.

I attempted it three times and each time I couldn’t get past the second step. After the third attempt I decided that my body would not go further and got into savasana. As I lay in savasana, I began to feel bad about myself because I didn’t do my peak pose, but as I began this very old and natural train of thought, I stopped myself.

I decided then: Maria you have a choice here, you could berate yourself and define this practice from this one pose, or you can accept that this is where you are at and enjoy the rest of your practice.

That is when I knew that I have come a long way. All the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Little things, that I take for granted on my mat, I realized today. I practice every day so it’s hard to remember how far I have come. There are so many things I couldn’t do before, that now are routine. I am not only referring to physical abilities. Not getting on my mat every day (even for meditation) is hard. It’s not that it doesn’t happen (for example on vacation the travel day, depending on how early it starts is usually a non-yoga day). But when it does happen, the next day I jump out of bed ready to get onto my mat. Being mindful, and only speaking the truth and when necessary has also become routine – I have to say this is mostly due to my Yoga off the mat Challenge from a few weeks ago, not just yoga. I can go on and on about all of the changes. I had thought, when I started this year-long challenge that if I was lucky I would at least increase my yoga knowledge on the mat, and maybe do some interesting reading. But instead, I found a whole new perspective, and a whole new way to live, I learned to be happy and at peace.

Like I said before, I have tried though out this month (and last month) to write down how I felt mid-way through, but I couldn’t get what I wanted to say out of my mind and onto the screen, until this morning. It’s as if, this morning everything I had been thinking came out through my movements, and through my peaceful practice.

If I were to describe it, my practice today was a fluid, active mediation. The sequence worked so well that each pose easily led to the next, my breathing was steady and my mind was calm. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have had on my mat up until now.

This is where I am at today in my yoga practice. It is six months in, it’s the summer solstice and when I get on my mat I feel more alive than I ever have.

Making a positive change, no matter what it is, will take you places you never knew possible in your mind and in your heart. That will allow you to see the world from a different perspective. The key, that I have learned, is any change must be taken step by step. There is no magic pill you can take that will bring you this realization. This is because it takes work, and it takes honesty. In order to take the lessons learned on the mat (or whatever activity you choose to do) and apply them to your life, you need to take a good look at who you are, and how you have become the way you are. In order to heal, you need to look at yourself in the mirror every day and learn to love what you see. It’s not about perfecting the pose, or doing the perfect run, or whatever, it’s about giving yourself a chance every day. Little by little, the changes happen without you noticing, until you have a day like today and they all just fall into place.

Namaste, and happy summer!!

Standing firmly in my tree pose

I am sitting in a messy hotel room in Gatineau Quebec at the moment. Ten years ago, if someone had told me that I would be content sitting in a hotel room waiting for a man, I would have remarked with disdain. Why am I happy in a small city, in the ramada hotel?

Life has changed a lot for me in the last 10 years. Twelve years ago I lost my father, as I mentioned in a previous post, that was the end of the time before.Between the time before and now was a scary and dark period in my life.

This morning as I stood in tree pose I was reminded of what it represents: sturdiness. When in tree pose we are asked to route our standing leg to the ground, to almost imagine our feet go into the ground and form routes. Tree pose is a stabilizing pose, in it we find strength, and beauty. We are reminded of how strong we really are. In order to maintain the balance the standing leg must be unmoving, completely straight, our backs must be straight, shoulders apart, chest out, and if we do this we can remain there forever. We can do this because we are standing firm on the secret wisdom that we are powerful, I only recently realized this.

The time before, was not happy per say, but it was innocent, to a point. I had a life plan, that my father had set out for us : graduate high school, go to university, meet a boy, get married, have kids. The day he died this dream was flushed down the shit hole for me. Well actually, I need to take it back further. This dream (or shall I say fairytale?) died the day I realized my parents were very, VERY unhappy together, and they shouldn’t have ever gotten married, let alone have kids in that kind of environment they had created in their disgust for one and other. Love didn’t exist after that in my life. Don’t get me wrong, my parents loved their kids (but my mother was severely unhappy and dissapeared (figuratively) into her own hell for many years, and my father also dissapeared into his illness through out my life).

And so love, as in meeting a boy, falling in love and living happily ever after, was a sham in my teenage eyes. When my father died (at this point he was basically the adult in our home, my mom sinking deeper into her own hell at this time) my world crumbled to the ground. Everything I believed to be true was gone. Love was gone. The hope of a better tomorrow was gone. The one person in the world who I could count on, most of the time, to take care of business and lead me in the right direction, was gone.

For a long time I searched for someone to save me. This landed me in many awful situations. In the next two years after my father passed away, I managed to move across the globe and get engaged to the most conservative (and I will also add insane) person I could have chosen. If I could explain who I was at this time, the best description I could come up with would be a leaf in the middle of October: crumbling, being pushed along by a violent wind with no distinct direction, no purpose, on the verge of death. I got very sick (emotionally) and could not make any decisions for myself, I allowed others to make very important decisions for me. I silenced myself, or shall I say, I was so afraid that my voice became lost in the wind that was pulling me along.

After two years of shattering myself over and over again, I finally got the nerve to leave that relationship and return home. But even then, I was still lost. I wanted so desperately to go back. I wanted to go back to a time where I was able to laugh, and dance, the time of innocence, the time before. I did a very good job of omitting the turmoil at home before my fathers death and viewed it as the golden age. Of course, there were times in my childhood which I still look back on with very fond memories and good feelings, but I have learned to balance out the good and the bad of my childhood and accept them both.

After returning home, I had two other series of bad relationships (not bad guys, but clearly not guys for me) until I met J.

When I finally met him, I was determined to live my life without men, and so when we met, I could see that my plan wasn’t going to work out very well. I started to fall in love with him from the moment he said my name on our first date (it was a blind date – online dating – and so his first word to me was Maria?). He was everything I had avoided in finding before : he was tall, older (for me back then), mature, sure of himself, and through out the whole date a complete gentleman.

Seven years later, and I am still falling in love.

So why am I happy sitting in the ramada hotel waiting for J to come back from a meeting? Because my life is full of love. I have found peace, and I have found myself.

After I returned home from my engagement (or how I like to refer to it, my time in jail) I told some friends that I felt like I had been broken into a million pieces and had to find a way to put each piece of me back together again. I have only done that recently. It’s been a slow, but continuous process and I now realize that all of my experiences have led to this, to my life today.

I read something yesterday that really put this in perspective for me

I had a very hard time dealing with the fact that the time before was gone. After my father had passed away I took on the role of taking care of everyone and everything (like I said my mom had dissapeared into her own personal hell at this time) and I had successfully not dealt with my own emotions. So when I returned home after having escaped yet another horrible situation, I was completely lost. I looked ahead to the future and it terrified me. I looked into my past and only found pain. The only comfort I could find was the time before, where life’s possibilities were still a reality, where parents were adults, and children could dance and sing. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring that time back. It took many years for me to accept that the time before was gone and be ok with that. It also took along time to find who I was now, after everything that had happened. If I am going to be truly honest here, only in the last two years have I been able to find true joy, and dance, and sing, and laugh without feeling a jolt of sadness.

I can now say that I stand firmly on my two feet, and while I am still learning who I am, I do so, understanding a lot more of where I have come from, and the strengths and life experience that comes from that. J had a lot to do with my ability to stand on my own two feet, because he always has and continues to believe in me with such an innocence and love that it astounds me even still.

What I have learned is that all the things I am learning about myself in yoga, and in life, I already knew. Everything was in my heart, I was always home, but I got lost in the turmoil that surrounded my life. I silenced my voice, a long, long time ago for many reasons. For one thing, the adults in my life drowned out any other voice because their problems were so big and all consuming. Also, being so vulnerable and silent, I became easily manipulated, into almost becoming invincible. A leaf flowing in the wind on a cold autumn day.

I have often wondered, what changed with J. He was a complete outsider, all he knew was me, and because he was so comforting I was able to show him a little of who I was. For a long time, in the first few years of our relationship, I was continuously surprised at how much he understood about me. My whole life I had wanted to be understood, but I had done such a good job of silencing myself that no one heard me. I only had to say a few things to J for him to understand me. He often would understand when I was hurt, or why I was being shy, he always surprised me, and still does.

And so I am happy in this strange life. I am happy because in every moment of every day I find my voice. I am no longer a leaf, something fragile that can be easily manipulated or broken, I am the tree with bright green leaves that are wet from a recent rain. I am growing, and i am alive and i am being nourished by life and by my search for understanding. The trunk is my body, the branches are all of my experiences. The branches of a tree are beautiful, some are sturdy, while others we hesitate to get on, due to their fragile nature. Alone, they mean nothing, but altogether they form the tree, what we see. Together, the branches form me. All of my experiences have created me. Each branch has taught me something about myself and about life. Each one has also formed my decisions, created my ideology, and together they are beautiful. The routes of the tree are never changing, they are the things I already knew, that my heart knew, but I had silenced, buried deep in the ground. Now that I am no longer just a leaf, I am whole, I am connected to me and I stand firmly in my tree pose.

Step 1 to India: booked my flights!

First step to India is complete. I have booked my ticket! I now know exactly when I will be setting off into the unknown! :

Thursday October 03 10:10 am I leave Saguenay for Montreal
Montreal to Zurich
Zurich to New Delhi
Friday October 04 at 23:55 I arrive in New Delhi

From there I will be picked up at the airport for my 6 hour drive to Rishikesh

🙂

It’s not that I haven’t travelled before, I love traveling. I’ve flown across the world to meet up with J in between tours. I’ve been to many airports, and am totally accustomed to expect change. But this is different.

Not only am I going to India, which in and of itself is going to be a huge culture shock, but I’m going to a regimented 3 month yoga teacher training course. I will be living in a small hotel room (that may or may not have a western toilet-if not there will be a hole in the ground), 3 times a day of yoga, meditation in the morning (up to an hour) lectures through out the day (philosophy, yoga therapy, anatomy), vegetarian diet, no coffee, and silence in the evening – six days a week.

But I’ve never been more excited to do anything in my life. Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m nervous and scared at the same time. But today when my confirmation came for my e-ticket, I almost jumped out of my seat. And when Rishikesh Yog Peeth (yoga school) confirmed my itinarary for an airport pick-up I smiled up to my ears, and I’m still smiling.

I know it’s going to be challenging, and I know that there will be days that out of sheer pain and exhaustion, I will curse the day I got onto my yoga mat, but I believe that at the beginning of each day, I will feel blessed, and so lucky to be on this journey. And in the end, I will have learnt so much about myself, yoga, life, and the experience is going to be one that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

I know this because of how I feel. Not once have I regretted the decision to go to a yoga teacher training course. I have been scared, I have thought that I was incapable of doing it, but deep down, I knew and I know this is where I am meant to go. But also, I know this because all big events in our lives, the ones that change us, are difficult. They take us to our limit, and ask us to go further, of course we are scared, but once we do it, we learn so much. I have been on this living yoga path for six months now, but I think my biggest challenge, and the pivotal moment of this year will be in Rishikesh.

I have 109 days until I get on the plane, but my heart is already there.