My Yoga JourneyMy Yoga Journey…
For me, yoga is a journey that will never cease to unfold, to take me deeper, to open up new possibilities…a journey with no end. I started to consistently practice yoga around the time that I left my full-time nursing career, which was in May of 2016. I had dabbled in yoga prior to that, but it wasn’t something I did regularly. I had always been pretty flexible, so for me, yoga seemed fairly easy, but I wasn’t attending classes or learning from an instructor. It was something I was diving into on my own, with little to no instruction…moving intuitively, using the limited knowledge of it that I had. It felt so freeing and so right.
My cousin Beth has been a yoga instructor for many years, so eventually I started driving about an hour from where I live to attend her classes and attend classes with her. I loved being able to connect with her through yoga and to learn from her. I started to make a lot of progress with my practice very quickly, and even though I wasn’t getting to classes with her as often as I would have liked, what I was learning when I was there was helping me at home with my personal practice, so I began going deeper.
Beth moved to Minnesota in the Summer of 2017…which led me to branch out in my local community and I began attending classes and yoga events nearby, which is how I ended up meeting my teacher, although I didn’t know at the time when I met her that I would end up taking her teacher training course, but it was at this time that the wheels in my head started turning and when I first thought about actually becoming an instructor. I thought it would tie in nicely with the work I was doing as a birth doula and help me deepen my own practice.
Everything fell into place later that year, and in December of 2017, I enrolled in the 200 hour teacher training course. This act alone motivated me to continue to go deeper with my practice at home and regularly attend classes in my local community. And on March 1, 2018 I officially started training. I really didn’t know entirely what I would be in for, but I kept an open heart and mind. I was already well under way in my spiritual path, having what I refer to as an “awakening” in 2016 after walking away from my nursing career.
Fast forward to June 21, 2018 and teacher training is complete! It was definitely a sacrifice for me in just about every way possible to complete this training…juggling life with a husband (thankfully a very supportive one), three dogs, and a cat, along with work as a photographer and the private nursing job I have at this time to supplement my income. But just like with everything in life, I knew it would pass, and as one season ended another would begin.
And I continue to dive deeply, learning and unlearning, so much about life, about myself, about others. Yoga is so much more than just physical postures and flexibility. It is about being with and accepting what is; learning to be with discomfort and with truth without running away or numbing. It is practice for life…by giving to myself in this way, I am better equipped to give more to others. I am also able to really just accept what is, without trying to rush or force anything, having faith and trusting that all will be as it should be when and how it is meant to be.
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