Finding Balance

   

So my last several blog posts have been pretty fucking deep and dark and redemptive. That's where I'd been kinda stuck recently. As I look back, I kinda feel that I've been overly dramatic. I mean, seriously, whining about having to teach soooooo many yoga classes each day, every day and how it sucked my entire soul. Don't get me wrong - that's exactly what it FELT like and ALL feelings are valid. But something about putting some distance between your emotions and your reaction time lends a clearer perspective. And also the simple act of identifying your imbalances and working to correct them.

So as I dumped a bunch of classes and have had EVERY WEEKEND OFF since Memorial Day weekend, the pendulum has rapidly swung the other way!!! I've morphed back into one serious party girl again! In the city every weekend with my 20-something squad! Living life loud and fast and slightly on the edge of control.

It just feels so good to feel good again, ya know? To allow myself happiness once again. To make time for myself and my friends. To get a bit crazy and out of control. No need to go into huge details here lol! Just suffice it to say that the month of June 2016 has been round two of my 20s! Fortunately on a much more restrained level, mainly because my 20-something squad has much less energy and sense of adventure than me! Sorry Migle and Alexus - but you know I'm right!!

After working my assana off the past few years in my new career as a yoga instructor, I put almost EVERYTHING into building it. Cultivating a solid base of students. Building my own knowledge base. Rigorously trying to hang on to my personal practice. Most importantly, trying to make it financially solely through my own sweat and effort and work ethic. I've finally reached a point where the sheer FEAR of making "enough" to sustain myself has been overshadowed by exhaustion and burnout. Which turned out to be the best thing ever for me.

It has forced me to pull back. Balance it out a little more. Sometimes I don't even know how to act when I have TWO days off in a row! Saturday mornings have been when I do my "long" run, and you only show up hungover for that kind of thing ONCE - or if you're ME, TWICE. Then you soon learn to lay slightly lower on Friday nights! But it certainly beats laying low because you know you have FOUR classes to teach on Saturday. And then Saturday night you're so exhausted and crabby that it makes no sense to try to do too much.

Now, my Saturday nights are rockstar events because I've already gotten up and RUN and probably done some yoga ... guilt-free night with my squad! I've literally been in love at least three times this past month! Perhaps love isn't the best word.... But I digress.

This post is about finding balance. Isn't it something that we all struggle with? I've flown through most of my life; my only stabilizers have been relationships. Oftentimes, those of us who avoid being grounded and stable are actually running from pain. To be grounded means to be rooted in our physical bodies and that's where we store so much pain and grief and trauma. THIS is why as yogis we are always working out different emotions and coming to so many realizations about ourselves.

I get it - not all yogis are recovering heroin addicts. But through my own personal practice and my experience as an instructor, we certainly all have room to let go of some shit and find space where there once was pain, tightness, illness, regret, whatever!! 

And it all comes back to seeking balance. It's pretty easy to live in the extremes. All in or all out. Go hard or go home. Do or die. Fight or flight. Balance is standing your ground while chaos swirls around you. It's knowing when you've lost it and recalibrating yourself back to your center. It's realizing that you can do ANYTHING just not EVERYTHING. It's doing your best without beating yourself up. It's having fun while still taking care of yourself and respecting your body. It's knowing when to hold on and when to let go.

As our circumstances shift, our experiences transform us, we are forced to adapt in order to maintain our balance. And it is a constant, daily, lifelong practice. 

Annica! Annica! Annica! Be happy! Be happy! Be happy!

From My Heart to Yours

Have you ever occluded your heart? Closed it for an entire season? Shuttered it up and safely secured it and just left it alone in stillness? Have you ever done it for so many seasons, that you didn't even realize what you'd done? You just went through the motions of living and practically FORGOT you had a heart and what it felt like to FEEL?

The thing about your beautiful, amazing heart is that it is infinitely patient. It keeps beating in the background until you are STRONG enough and BRAVE enough to re-open it. It doesn't care how long or why. It waits.

You stay super busy. And work until exhaustion. You avoid it. You project onto others. You beat yourself up. Repeatedly. You attack others as a defense mechanism to keep them far away. You shove down any little murmurs from your heart with whatever is close. Food. Sugar. Alcohol. Sex. Prescription drugs. Non-prescription drugs. Shopping. You immerse yourself in the PHYSICAL practice of yoga or running or lifting or whatever. You try a new type of bodywork. You get engaged. Several times. Married a couple more. You have your chakras aligned. You do a 10 day silent retreat. You see a therapist. You have a reading done. You chant. You do a detox. You go gluten-free. You become vegan. You try all types of supplements and essential oils. You buy some more Jimmy Choos. You change careers. You become a yoga teacher. You have an Ayurvedic consultation. And on and on and on.

And then one day, you look up from the grindstone and it occurs to you: I'm fucking miserable! And you start to look a little closer at this sham of a life you've created where you've only been fooling yourself! And you start to quietly listen in stillness to hear your heart's deepest longing. It doesn't blame you for wasted days, months, years, decades. It simply reminds you of what you already knew.

And you slowly, bravely, painstakingly peel layer after layer, barrier after barrier. And once you think you're done, you realize there's so much more to peel away. So you do the work. Make some significant lifestyle changes. Let go and release those things you've been clinging to. And this generates more energy flow from your heart center. You breathe just a teeny tiny bit more deeply. Your poor battered body and mind release stored tensions, stress, traumas. You start to find more ease.

As your battered yet somehow untouched and unbreakable heart continues to be liberated, it starts emitting its lovely frequency again. And it reaches and touches other beautiful hearts that are drawn into your life. Some are new. Others have been there all along, just waiting. And your heart continues to open and shed and it literally just buoys in your chest. So light that it would float away if it wasn't for your ribcage. But now your heart KNOWS. It APPRECIATES. It is filled once again with GRATITUDE and WONDER and AMAZEMENT at well, EVERYTHING! 

And your heart finally realizes that just because someone touches your heart or plays a song on your heartstrings, that person doesn't for an iota of a second OWE you anything. You are not bound to that person for life - though the connection will always remain. That heart may have come to TEACH you a valuable lesson. Maybe YOU were their lesson. They are not responsible for your happiness or well-being. Only YOU, beautiful, strong, brave YOU have that power and that gift.

We are all here on our personal quests, our personal journeys. Unique to us. Lived and experienced by us. It is a BLESSING when someone comes along and shares part of your journey. Maybe your entire journey. Maybe one lovely soulful evening. 

Annica! Annica! Annica! Be happy! Be happy! Be happy!