Two Months of Separation!

I think I finally get it. Not it, it. But it. You know. IT.

I was sitting in yoga teacher training yesterday, finishing up a weekend of yoga and potential teachers and training, my hips in gomukasana, feeling some kind of anger for those tight muscles, patiently waiting for them to peel away the layers and layers I build on them everyday. We hide our emotions in our hips. It’s those sneaky corners that sway side-to-side, crease when we sit, and of course the hips are useful for many, many additional adventures.

After having a month off from both of my jobs and traveling home and to Charlottesville over the holidays, I had a lot of time to sit and think. A lot of time to explore Asheville, welcome my good friends to the area, and of course, yoga.

There really is a constant transformation of things. Everyday really is a new day. Something new to support or listen to, something new to explore and take in. Everyday. Even though things are quite hectic right now, I know that I’m in the best place possible.

There’s something very real and true about feeling who you truly are. About feeling your essence, somewhere buried deep down inside. Because we bury it, thinking that at some point we will all dig it up, scoop it out, and sift through the pieces. Like we will have these huge globs of ourselves sitting out on a coffee table. Sometimes it takes a nervous breakdown when people turn fifty; sometimes it takes a lifetime of yoga to really and truly believe in something inside of you.

I do know it doesn’t take a job or an apartment of your own, or close relationships to truly bring these things to the surface. I’m finally really looking forward to becoming a yoga instructor in May. For a while I was just going through the motions, doing my practice and meditation. Not even really serious about meditation. And then it hit me: this is it.

It’s kind of like the tough guy who writes about tough things his whole life, and then all of a sudden he gets his girlfriend or wife pregnant, reacts really scared and weird but excited about it, then ten months later he’s writing sappy, sentimental poetry about his baby’s eyes or the way it’s belly rises and falls as it sleeps. It’s like that. Before I went through this experience I promised myself I wasn’t going to really dive into yoga on my blog, that I didn’t want to become one of those people who talk about peace and inner harmony and appreciating the moment. I pre-judged myself and judged others for attempting to create a culture of happiness and contentment based on something other than material goods. On what’s under the surface of each surface.

In one of the books we read for training, she explains that we come into this world on an inhale and leave on an exhale. If you watch a baby sleeping on its back, its belly pleasantly moves up and down. For adults, we choke our breath into our throats and the top of our lungs, continuing to short ourselves.

I have my students write out their goals for the next couple of years and it’s an exciting time for me to be revising mine. Added are yoga retreats and writing more, because at some point I really do want to write a book. And in the middle of all this energy, knowing that both my contracts for work are up at the end of May, I know that there’s an opportunity in all of this. That Asheville in the summer teaching yoga is going to be amazing. I want to take a trip back out to the desert to see all of my friends and to teach a class at my friend’s house.

And of course it’s all about what you enjoy. For some people it’s watching a football game on a cold Sunday afternoon, or waking up to your son saying “hello” and “echo” to your high ceilings in your new home, or going to the farmer’s market in your new section of your city on a Sunday morning. For me, it’s that discovery.