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!