Origin Story

This is the last post of a four week series. Here’s week 1, week 2 and week 3 in case you missed them.

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Well hello there. The last time I saw you around these parts, things were quite different. My little family of ten TTs (teacher trainees) are now just Ts (teachers), all grown up and graduated, and all headed back to our respective parts of the world.

I’ve been struggling a bit with what to write for this wrap-up post. There’s so much to say, but it feels like most of it isn’t ready to see the light of day yet – so many experiences that will take some time to process and contextualize.

On Saturday during our graduation ceremony, we watched a graduation speech that Swami Satchidananda gave in the early 1990s. He talked about the new graduates being like cows (stick with me here, I promise it makes sense): we spend the 4 weeks of our teacher training “grazing” and taking in all this information, with no time to process it. Then, we go home and start burping up the information – this is where we get a chance to really chew on it, to take the good pieces and spit out any sticks we picked up along the way, and turn it into the really valuable material that ends up being fully digested and nourishes us as we move forward. Just FYI, he also does a really spot-on cow impression.

I think that this is another opportunity for me to live my work, because I want to have all the answers right now, and I want to be able to come charging out of the gates with my game plan in place and everything figured out. Alas, as tends to happen, I’m still sitting here just starting to burp up the information that needs to be chewed on. Message received, universe.

I have some ideas about where Rebel Yogi will go, but I also came to the realization while I was soaking in the yogic lifestyle that all the best things come without force. I can’t control what’s going to happen, so for now I’m (figuratively) sitting on my hands and trying my best to have patience as the pieces start to come together.

I’m feeling like next week’s post is going to explore the possibilities ahead, and ask for your feedback for the first time – so start thinking about it, if you would. I’m doing this for you, for us, for our amazing community of people who are out there on a daily basis making the world a better place. So, how can I support you? What kind of projects and programs will be the most helpful for you? What can I offer to make your life and your work better?

More to come on that, but for now I’ll leave you with the only quote that made it to the Facebook page last week. It really sums up most of my experience at the Ashram, and I’ve been mulling over what it means for me. As such, it seems fitting to close with it:

Yoga is over 4000 years old but it may be new to you. It is a scientific system that makes you the master of your senses. Yoga is not a religion, yet it embraces all religions. Yoga will introduce you to someone you might not know – your Self.”
-Swami Satchidananda

Changemaker Q&A is taking a break until I get in touch with the next batch of awesome people – but that gives you time to catch up on the three that have already posted up if you haven’t read them yet: Amy Clover, Dave Ursillo, and Andrea Bailey!

Ever yours in yoga.

This is week three of a four week series. Here’s week 1 and week 2 in case you missed them, and also week 4.

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How can three weeks fly by so quickly?

We started practice teaching the full class at the beginning of the week, and have our qualifying exams starting on Thursday (tomorrow, by the time this post goes live). Graduation is on Saturday, and then Sunday we’re out of here. I’ll admit that I got a little teary-eyed this morning reading the schedule for this week. I can’t believe that it’s almost over.

My major victory this week was finally breaking the no sleep cycle. After 19 nights of tossing and turning, Friday night supplied almost 6 hours of sleep – never in my life have I been so grateful for that short an amount of sleep. It felt like a vast ocean of sleep in comparison. And, last night I packed in eight and a half!

Not sleeping taught me a lot: where my breaking points are, how much inner strength I have, and how tolerant I am. Most of this information was surprising to me. Chalk it up to how much this experience is teaching me in general.

You know how I mentioned in previous posts here that it’s not just about the asanas? Well, turns out it’s also not just learning how to teach yoga, or learning about the other 7 limbs of yoga. I think for all of us, it’s been about learning about ourselves – digging deep into the stuff we’re made of, seeing what’s strong enough to stay, and watching the rest fade away as we move on toward the horizon.

The past couple of weeks have been highly emotionally charged. In fact, when I sat down to write last week’s post, I didn’t want to write. Everything felt too raw, and I held back a lot of what was bubbling just under the surface because I was afraid of letting it out. I was scared that if I opened it up for a few drops to come out, the entire ocean would come ripping along behind it, washing me away in the process.

One of our teachers told us that the second week was when our baggage would finally arrive. The first week is usually all fun and excitement, getting settled in and starting to navigate the waters. Then,BOOM! Everything that you thought you had left behind would catch up, bowling you over in the process.

If I come away from this program with nothing else, I have started to see how much brighter things look when you let go of the things you can’t control. Swami Satchidananda talks a lot about the best yogis being surfers – riding the waves and staying above the violent roll of the ups and downs in life, not getting so attached to trying to control every little thing.

Anyone who knows me knows that there’s a deep rooted type-A personality inside, complete with OCD tendencies and a really strong will. A lot of my work here has been about trusting in the process; learning to be comfortable with putting as many pieces in place as I can and then trusting that things will go the way they’re going to go; “doing my best and leaving the rest” (another Swami S quote).

One of the hardest things about taking these four weeks away was letting progress on Rebel Yogi be put on pause. I know that technically it’s not the case, and this training is absolutely one of the biggest foundational pieces, but it still feels like I’m letting this time slip away. It’s also the fact that I don’t know quite what things are going to look like when I get done and head back to Portland.

There’s also a lot in my personal life that’s up in the air again this coming summer, but being here has really allowed me to be okay with the uncertainty (or, let’s be honest, at least more okay with it than I would have been previously).

For the time being, it’s back to studying and prepping for this last week. I’ll see you on the flip side – I’ll be writing my final ashram post next week!

I’ll leave you with the thoughts of the week from the RY Facebook page:

By the nature of which you no longer fit into the collective paradigm (including families, workplaces, old friends or social circles you used to belong to) is the measure by which you have individuated and are fitting more truly to your authentic Self. That Self will always be vaster than your circumstances, your appearance, what you do for a living and by which you define yourself, your sense of worth or need for whatever worldly accomplishment. That Self knows no measuring, has no particular destination, it is just expanding into being and will take as much space within yourself, as you are consciously ready to make room for it. Every time you find yourself wondering why you feel like an outsider, remember that it is the sure sign that you are aligning to the right direction of your inner compass. You do not need to separate or even adhere to this misconstrued idea. All you have to do is include more of the true you into you and within you. Freedom is not about having the privilege of doing what we want, it is having less and less need to be defined and validated outside of ourselves by others. The less separate we are from our authentic self, creating union of the self with the self, the more at one we are with the world and the infinite.”  -Isabelle Pierre-Emile

“The world around us is a reflection of our collective thoughts and actions. When we change, that change ripples out from us. You can make a difference. We can make a difference.”

“Love is a verb, not a noun.” -Mother Teresa

And, an Italian chihuahua doing yoga. You’re welcome.

Changemaker Q&A is taking a break until I’m back from the ashram – but that gives you time to catch up on the three that have already posted up if you haven’t read them yet: Amy Clover, Dave Ursillo, and Andrea Bailey!

Ever yours in yoga.

This is week two of a four week series. Here’s week 1 in case you missed it, and week 3 & week 4.

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It’s the end of week two, and I find myself at a loss for words.

I flit between wanting to be here forever, and wanting to be home. Between thinking I’ve found the perfect path, to wondering what the hell I’m doing here.

Our little group has become a family, and the Ashram community an extended circle of friends. We’re learning so much, from such amazing teachers. The Swamis are these bundles of intense light, joy and wisdom – and we get to tap into that on a daily basis.

The Swami who teaches our Raja Yoga class (yoga philosophy) tells us hilarious illustrative stories when we don’t quite grasp what she’s trying to teach us, and she even had us doing skits this week. Our group may or may not have done one on our attachment (and subsequent non-attachment) to guacamole. Just saying.

It’s been an emotional week. I did my first ever Sarvangasana (shoulder stand) last Monday, and proceeded to have an emotional break, and then a migraine the following day. So much transformational energy and shedding of the things that no longer serve us – remember how I said that I thought I had shed so much already in the past few years, and my journey across the country last summer? Yeah – apparently there’s still more left to let go of.

One of the things that keeps my feet under me is the alignment of my goals for Rebel Yogi and the things that we’re learning here. It’s not just the asanas. In fact, it’s so NOT about the asanas at all. It’s all about loving ourselves, taking care of this body we’re gallivanting about in, so that we can better go out into the world to kick ass, take names and shake up the status quo.

Thanks for following along, for being a part of this continuing transformation. I’m still not sure what life or Rebel Yogi will look like when I get back, but I have this feeling that we’re in for an amazing ride.

Like last week, I’ll leave you with the daily reflections from this past week:

You must eat to have enough energy to serve others. Even the practice of meditation is not done just for your own peace but is done because with a peaceful mind you can go out into the world and serve well.” –Yoga Sutras 1.15, commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda

“Did you know that the heart feeds itself freshly oxygenated blood first, so it can then feed the rest of the body?”

“I have no time to be in a hurry.”

“Your body is a product of the past; your mind spins between the past, present and future; but the breath is always in the moment.”

“1000 steps after dinner puts the pharmaceutical companies out of business.”

“Nature will not let us stay in any one place for too long. She will let us stay just long enough to gather the experience necessary to the unfolding and advancement of the soul. This is a wise provision, for should we stay there too long, we would become too set, too rigid, too inflexible. Nature demands change in order that we may advance.” –Ernest Holmes

There won’t be a Changemaker Q&A this week – but that gives you time to catch up on the three that have already posted up if you haven’t read them yet: Amy Clover, Dave Ursillo and Andrea Bailey!

Ever yours in yoga.

This is week one of a four week series. Here’s week 2, week 3, and week 4.

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It’s been one week. I can’t believe that the first week has flown by so quickly, or that it feels like we have been here for weeks already.

(I’ll be writing these posts on my Sundays off, but you won’t see them until Wednesday. I’m sure by the time this post goes up, I’ll be in a completely different head space with completely different things to tell you – but you’ll just have to wait until next week for that!)

[insert  a bit of complaining here – if you’d like to skip it, look for the next bracket!]

The time shift has been the hardest part of the transition. I haven’t slept through the night since I left Portland, and had several nights with no sleep at all, but it’s getting better. We got to sleep in this morning, which was a brilliantly beautiful experience. By sleeping in, I of course mean that I got up at 7:45 am instead of 5:30 am. My self from a couple of weeks ago would not be pleased with that new definition of “sleeping in”, especially since it’s technically 4:45 am PST according to my body.

This first week has been completely overwhelming from every possible angle – new surroundings, roommates for the first time since college, different time zone, different food, constant meditation, daily yoga and practice teaching, and SO MUCH SITTING. Did I mention the sitting? My knees (all of our knees) have been screaming from the transition to many hours of cross-legged sitting, both during class and meditation.

[end of complaining – see, that wasn’t so bad!]

Now with that initial petty griping out of the way, I have to say that being here at the Ashram has been an amazing experience. I really had no concept of how things would be. There are 9 of us here for basic teacher training, and we feel like a family already. We laugh more than I have laughed in a lifetime, even during class. No laughing during meditation, of course (except for laughter meditation, which is awesome btw). The food is fantastic, and we are being guided by two amazing teachers (and several of the Reverends and Swamis), and supported by three selfless staff members who seem to anticipate our needs before we even realize we have them.

This experience is so much deeper than just learning how to teach asanas. We’re really getting a fully rounded education in all aspects of yoga, learning to live the practice.

There have been a few moments of terror, thinking about how big this thing I’m doing is, and feeling so uncertain about my ability to step into the role of teacher (at least in this capacity). Those moments have been thankfully few and far between, and I’m mostly left with a feeling of joy about being here and the new directions I’m headed, and a little bit of brain fatigue from the immense amount of information that is getting pumped into our heads.

There was a full lunar eclipse at the beginning of the week with a moon that was incredibly close to the earth, and all sorts of natural and planetary energy is shifting in major ways all this month. It’s definitely going to be an interesting ride, so stick around.

I want to be able to leave you with some huge, mind bending blog posts while I’m here, but I’m recognizing that it’s all a journey, a process, and like most things in life, they happen in whatever order they happen. For now, I’m soaking in the experience and new knowledge like a sponge, and recognizing that’s all I can do.

And, really – that’s pretty much all we can do in this life: be here, be good to ourselves, do good work with an open mind and a clear heart. And enjoy it while you’re here; that’s really one of the more important pieces.

So, I’ll leave you with this selection of thoughts that resonated during the week:

If you are dwelling in darkness, you cannot bring light into the world.”

“If you’re not having fun, you’re missing the point!”

“Deep peace is always present in every moment, but we’re often too wrapped up in other things to notice that it’s there.”

“None of us are going anywhere, anyway, so we might as well relax!”

“Did you know that the average 4-year-old laughs 400 times a day, and the average adult only 15?”

I’ll be posting up more like this during the next three weeks over on Facebook (including photos), so if you’re really curious to keep up with what’s going on in between posts, you can do that there.