So I share this at the risk of sounding slightly crazy (for those who know me I think it goes without saying that I'm pretty open to the metaphysical world), but I recently consulted an "Intuitive Counselor" (i.e. psychic) who came highly recommended to me from two trusted and totally normal friends. She knew only two things about me: my first name and my cell phone number. She doesn't want to know anything else, because she doesn't want to be accused of researching her clients.
At 11:00 a.m. I called her for our appointment, after a brief introduction she asked me not to say anything because she didn't want me to muddle or confuse any images that came to her. Then for about 7 minutes there was silence. When she finally spoke she said to me, "You help people find their way and get unstuck, you show them new ways of seeing and you are on the leading edge of life." OK, pretty generic, I agree, but also pretty spot on. Then she said, "In a past life you were a famous dancer. This is the symbol for the teacher; perhaps you use movement or dance to help people get unstuck." Now we're talking. How the heck did she do that?!?!?!!?
She told me very many more interesting things about myself which resonated as true, but I remain totally baffled by that that statement because of its overwhelming truth: being a Yogini, a Yoga teacher and a studio owner—someone who uses movement to help people get unstuck—is my Dharma (living in order with the cosmos and one's pre-determined life's path).
The need to move has been pervasive throughout my life. My mother has told me that I spent my entire childhood dancing, she said that my need to move as a child was so overwhelming that I couldn't make it through dinner without performing a dance in front of the kitchen table: I remember it. I also remember coming home from elementary school and tumbling around the living room for hours in some sort of dance/gymnastics hybrid that probably looked a lot like Yoga and coming to dinner a red-faced, sweaty mess. As I grew older and more self-conscious, I transferred the energy from perpetual motion into athletics as they were a socially acceptable arena for movement and I learned to sit through dinner. Even so, throughout high school and college, anytime you put an open field in front of me, I was guaranteed to start cartwheeling and handspringing my way down the field, much to my friends' dismay. All I can say is I really couldn't help it . . . I really had to move.
So this of course makes Yoga such a natural fit for me. I did Yoga for a long time before I really found the flow. Both Ashtanga and Baptiste Yoga are flow based, so they both opened the door to flow, but when I found the intuitive sequencing and dancelike flow of teachers like Shiva Rae and Sarah Thompson Beyer, I knew I was home. A while back I blogged about my love for the Idaho Mountains and how the first time I visited them I had this overwhelming sense of knowing that I was home, I had the same overwhelming sense of knowing that somehow I was on my path the first time I practiced Yoga in this free and dancelike way. I was not doing the Yoga, I was not straining in the poses, the flow was simply moving through me in this totally liberated and authentic way, I was totally out of my head—released from repetitive thought patterns—and pure life source moved through me. It was, and still is, total bliss for me to move in this way.
And it's also so easy for me to teach this way. I never plan a class, I never plan a sequence. I simply get on my mat and the sequences flow through me. I've had other teachers ask me to create workshops on creating flow based sequences and I honestly have no clue how I could share this information: it simply arrives. It's an unstudied, intuitive and totally authentic experience. So I send them to Shiva and Sarah!
Every day I wake up overwhelmed with gratitude that I found my Dharma and I actually get to live it. I can't believe that I get to spend every day using movement to help people get unstuck. I can't believe I get to spend my whole life moving! Mostly I'm beyond grateful for the AMAZING group of people for whom this style of Yoga resonates. It's only because of their willingness and openness to move freely that I get to teach, that I get to live my Dharma. This week I got an email from a client that said, [When you teach you] "make jokes, expressions etc ... it makes the class more fun and energetic instead of just sort of routine. You're the 'master' at that and it makes all the difference!" To which I replied, "Thanks for the compliment, I LOVE teaching so much, it's easy to be light and fun b/c I'm having so much fun!" I'm in my flow, I'm living my Dharma . . . . I could not be luckier, happier or more fulfilled.
Namaste
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