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My beautiful friend and fellow yogi, Meghan.
I write an article about Yoga in my local newspaper, the Stanly News and Press. Here is my latest:
In a recent New York Times article titled “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”, William J. Broad discusses the dangers of injury through Yoga. When someone sent this article to me, my first thought was “Oh no!” But as I read it, I found myself agreeing with much of his point.
Broad tells of teachers and students who have experienced injuries due to taking their egos with them on their mats. I try to remind my students regularly that Yoga is not a competitive activity and if you are a naturally competitive person, please use this time to let that go and work on listening to your body.
Our American culture seems to scream that more is better, but when it comes to physical activities that we hope to maintain and sustain our good health, I don’t believe that is a good philosophy. I fell in love with Yoga because it was the first exercise that I felt I could do for the rest of my life. I was lucky because I found teachers who stressed safety and modifications and who did not push me to find my limits, but encouraged me to become more mindful and aware of my body’s abilities and limitations.
We do not say that we “do Yoga”, we say that we “practice Yoga”. This means that it is something we study regularly with the knowledge that we will have to adapt our poses and our practice at different times in our lives.
I see pictures of people in amazing poses and I have to admit that I am impressed. But I can also honestly say that I know that I will probably never practice or master those types of poses and that does not bother me one bit. I practice Yoga for my health, not because I want to perform in Cirque de Soleil or make it into Yoga Journal magazine.
I, too, have experienced pain and injury through Yoga. These things happened from overuse or pushing too hard when I was not warm enough to demonstrate a difficult pose in class. I should know better, but life is a process and those injuries have taught me valuable lessons about myself.
If Yoga is a part of your life, remember to listen to your body, always move slowly and mindfully through your poses and never concern yourself with what someone else looks like in a pose. “Know thyself.”
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. – Henry Ford
I spend my days teaching Yoga and Pilates. There is nothing else I would rather be doing and I am sincerely passionate about it. They have both changed my life and I want to be a part of changing someone else’s, one class at a time.
I am the luckiest person in the world because I do what I love, what I believe in and I know I’m good at it.
I had this epiphany one day in a Yoga class that I should bring this studio to my small, hometown because I was afraid there were people there who needed it and might not get it if I didn’t come. No one was more amazed than me that I actually made that happen.
So here I sit owning a studio in my hometown: a dream come true.
But for a while I got lost in all the “business” stuff. People kept telling me it’s a business and I have to make all these decisions based on numbers and marketing. I became so worried that I was missing opportunities for exposure and accolades in the name of the business that I forgot why I even wanted to create this space in the first place.
If I had raised money for a cause through the studio, I needed to call the newspaper and see if they would write an article about it. I wanted to share stories of things about me in sutras that I thought might help others, but I became too afraid of making myself look bad. I was losing all the things that I had gained and learned from my Yoga practice. Business isn’t humble or Yogic, but I would like to be.
Today I became free again and it’s such a relief. I became free because I’m no longer feeling like a business and I’m back to feeling like a person and a teacher. I have let people down and opened myself up to criticism, and now that it feels like expectations are low, I can finally be myself again.
I’m going to send donations with no hoopla whatsoever. I’m going to share whatever I want to in classes in the hopes that my existence can make someone’s better. I’m going to do what I’m good at and not apologize for what I’m not good at. I’ve never wanted to be successful, I’ve only wanted to be helpful. My intentions are pure and good and this business of business is not.
Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. -Marilyn Monroe
Yesterday I got to hang out with three very important people from my past life. It was an interesting day because I didn’t see them all together, but they were all from the same era of my life.
As our conversations went on and we caught up on what we’ve missed with each other and asked about all the people we knew, the phrase “life is messy” kept coming up again and again. We even said that if someone would have told us twenty years ago all the things that would unravel in everyone’s lives, we would have said “No friggin way!”.
But as interesting as the stories of all these crazy events were, I found myself more fascinated about the different ways everyone put their pieces back together. Some found religion, some self-medicate, some are successful in their careers, some are divorced, some never married, some push people away, some are homeless, some went to prison, some found Yoga and some send gorgeous Christmas cards every year to make us all believe they are living the American dream.
As I drove home last night, I had a sense of sadness that life can be so hard and at any moment the whole thing can fall apart. But as I woke up this morning, I felt this sense of pride in myself and happiness for all of us who don’t give up and search for positive ways to sustain.
Life is uncertain and messy and the only thing we can control about it is how we respond. You can clean out your closet and leave everything lying on the floor reminding you each day of your mess, or you can get rid of the things you don’t need and put the things you love back in, all organized and pretty. If we keep the door shut, it will never get dirty again, but then we wouldn’t get to sport all our hats and stroll around in all our favorite shoes.
