With a shift in my work, everything needs to adjust: facing change.
It has been about four years since one of my mentors suggested that I make a shift in my schedule, to teach less group classes in order to make more space for private sessions, a more specialized, tailored work, that I am now trained to do. It took me those four years and the extensive training in Yoga Therapy to begin to create that change.
(Important Note: I will continue to teach all the group classes at Imagine Yoga Studio [that feels like home to me], and I will now have more time and energy [mental and physical] to continue to offer Private Sessions, as well as Workshops & Series, and lead Retreats in Mexico. I also want to open my horizons and teach retreats in other places/countries!)
I felt pretty achy last night; maybe because the bones were telling me of rain coming today, maybe because I was cold and have been resisting my husband’s suggestion to put on an extra blanket. I find myself caught in the personality that I have created (“I - can’t - stand - an - extra - blanket!”) and all the ideas about myself that I am so used to believe (Do I really have an inflammatory reaction to gluten? Do I really dislike the rain?).
Today, the rain sounded sweet to my ears, the air felt so fresh, and the rain invited my tears to flow, like something that is part of nature, nurturing and soothing.
Another idea that sits in my mind is that I never get sick, even though I went through breast cancer, and earlier, as an adult, survived a mean scarlet fever (can scarlet fever not be mean?).
Today I have a headache, and it feels healing to cry, even if the letters look blurry on the computer screen, and the headache seems to intensify. Change implies loss. Grieving.
When I moved to Portland I spent a long time grieving for the yoga community I left in Oaxaca, the precious connection with each student, and, of course, my friends. Today, I wrap myself in a woolen “jorongo” that one of my sisters gave me. That makes me feel closer to my home country, held by it: Mexico.
Sometimes, I feel that when I grieve for one thing, I grieve for everything.
When change comes, the eternal question “Who am I?” comes back to me, like one of those permanent waves where very skillful people surf in some rivers. Will I lose myself? Will I get lost in “The Nothing”, if I stop teaching some group classes? I consider the advice of one of my sons: “Work with the river”.
Who am I?
My mother just turned 93, and, at her birthday party, she stood up at the table where all were sitting, ready to eat, and declared that she wanted to live to be 100 years old. She has survived a Civil War, the delivery of 9 babies, one tornado, and a fire, among many other things. She has survived 93 years of being alive.
So I think that yes, I am strong like my mother, I am human like my mother, and I am sad today. And all of that is okay.
A dear friend loaned me a book called “Beyond Brokenness”, by Rashani Rea. It says on page 131 (Xlibris Corporation, 2009): “Grieving Beneath the scattered feelings and the fragments of our past, we are essence, we are wholeness, and we are free. Suddenly, the gate swings wide, the archetype is cast aside, which led us proudly through our lives like a warrior at war. In nakedness we stand, humbled to the core. Only grace remains” And, I just read on the same author's website: “We are all alchemists, transforming pain into aliveness, unwanted experiences into awakening"
