I prefer the term, “setforward”
This could easily be seen as a setback. A momentary hiccough. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but feel like I am exactly where I need to be.
And where am I? Living back in my old bedroom at my parent’s house in unincorporated Arapahoe country, surrounded by glow-in-the-dark star studded walls and colored pencil doodles of fairies still scotch-taped to my closet doors. I drank a glass of Malbec last night in a Winnie the Pooh collector series Smuckers jelly jar circa 1998 while I snuggled under my down comforter, talking quietly on the phone with a friend until the wee hours of the night. This ought to seem like a setback.
My heart spoke; I listened. I had no choice really, with as loudly as it was shouting from the depths of my chest, periodically gripping my stomach with an indistinguishable but overwhelming fear that I was not to take another single step forward in the direction I had been going for over two years. So I quit my job. I stepped back from teaching. I broke up with my longest relationship – my two and a half years as a professional yogi.
I remember being warned in my very first teacher training in January of 2008 that the quickest way to ruin your yoga practice is to become a yoga teacher. Try immediately becoming a yoga teacher AND an administrator position within the yoga business. That shit ain’t easy – and if you did not have a strong personal practice to begin with, good luck maintaining one.
I became lost in the service of others. Which, as Gandhi or someone brilliant once said, is the best way to find yourself. However, it was not so much that I found myself so much as I stumbled across myself and thought, “Wait, who is this?” And then I would receive an email or a phone call or a question that seemed more important than offering a hand to myself – so I would, time and time again, put myself down further and further on my to-do list.
Please don’t misunderstand – I loved my job. I honor those friends and colleagues from that job. I am grateful for the support and endless encouragement that I always received from each of them.
And so, my quest for my own personal practice begins. Specifically, begins tomorrow with Amy Ippoliti’s Anusara Yoga Immersion. I am so thrilled, I can hardly stand it. I can honestly say that I am doing this for ME – I want nothing more than to delve into my own heart and answer my own questions and be responsible for me and nothing more than me, at least for the time being.
As I put together the interview footage for a testimonial video for Amy, I met with a number of Immersion graduates to discuss their experiences. A number of folks shared with me that after the Immersion, they felt empowered and made huge life changes, such as quitting their jobs and seeking something new. Well, hell – I have already quit my job and I wait patiently and with curiosity on the edge, wondering what gust of wind will raise up to fly me to my next perch.
Which makes me wonder – Lordy, what is about to unfold??