Deeper Intention

so I have only written one post in this blog and it was way back on January 9th of this year, so i am pushing almost a year since I've blogged about anything. talk about blogger sloth!! geesh!!

I guess I let myself get a little sidetracked on what focus to make this blog, and then just didn't blog at all. I love all my yoga teacher friend's yoga blogs, but my blogging experience in the past has always had a flare of all the other stuff I do in life and in my head it can always come back to yoga, but I didn't know if it would fit in my yoga blog.

so enough of keeping myself in the blog rule box that I made up in my head to stay in the inertia and not write at all. I crave journalling really. It helps me so much in my contemplation and direction and really connecting to my higher self thoughts rather than the "i'm unworthy" voices in the mind.

anyway, what is very current with me today is that I desire and want to deepen my intention in my own practice. this particular year of not blogging has also shown signs of slacking in my studentship. I teach ALOT. I work ALOT. I am a single mom, I pay my bills, I work as a yoga teacher and then waitress on the side to fill in the gaps that what I make as a teacher does not fill. It's no big deal because I love to teach and I love to serve. I love both jobs and they have their immense differences and then their similarities. Both are works of service, which is my primary "love language" quality (you could google that if you want to find out more, but essentially there are 5 love languages....touch, time, service, gifting, and affirmation.....and we are usually more than one in how we love, but usually lean towards one a little more than others). Anyway, I'm a service person, I always have been since I was a little girl, I love to give of my abilities and I really suck at buying gifts, lol. so I took two things I love and was fortunate enough to do them for a living. Wow! (I also love to sing, and get to sing in a few musical groups here and there, but I do that for fun and not for money.) With this busy schedule and being a mom and now also being a partner in a really healthy relationship (for the first time in my life!!) I have found that my personal practice has fallen down the list of priorities for happiness. I knew that I would run the risk of this as soon as I went from yoga student to yoga teacher with a busy teaching schedule. In the beginning it wasn't so bad because when I was first a teacher, I did much of the practice with the students as I learned to be comfortable with the verbal part of teaching. It is a challenge to do that!!! And in the beginning I had to be in a pose to explain it in alignment to link the verbage with the mechanics. So in the beginning that was great, I did the practice with them but being landlocked so to speak to my mat in the front of the room didn't allow for me to verbally or physically adjust the students as well as I could if I was walking around the room.

So, this year I got much better at that!!! I love to walk around the room and make verbal and physical adjustments to poses. I know this is a big part of being a teacher! We see the things students don't see and when we help guide them specifically while they are in a pose and we see the common misalignments and help correct them with them, they get those big "ah ha" moments deep within. I know this because I experience it as a student with my own teacher.

So therein lies my dilema. I am telling on myself!! In the beginning from transitioning from yoga student to yoga teacher/student, I went to a couple classes a week as a student and taught a whole lot and didn't do as much practice at home as I know I want and need to. sometimes not at all. More than sometimes even. So I deepened my teaching technique and didn't do the practice with the students, which is the natural evolution of becoming a better teacher, and didn't up my practice at home and also didn't have enough time to make it consistantly to class as a student. It just sort of happened. The one practice I did do consistantly at home as I began to work more hours at both jobs was restorative. My primary pose of choice is legs up the wall for as long as possible!! But it's not enough. Home practice is so important. Consistantly showing up as a student in my kula is important. Doing this without being currently involved in an immersion is also important. I seem to "beef up" my studies when I'm in the midst of immersions or teacher trainings or workshops, and that is important, but what if I beefed it up on a regular ol week, or how bout every day? Consistant practice, over time, with devotion....abhiyasa......ah!

So that is once again my deeper intention. To blog, to practice practice practice, to show up to two classes a week as a student, to create a better space in my home to practice as well as continuing to cultivate my teaching technique. And to blog. To write about it. To tell on myself when I ain't doin it!!! I think when we do this, and not in a negative way or critical way as to create shame and guilt, but in an enlightening and attentive way, to shed light on the darkness, then it's good, it's great!!!

I was in a pose, parsavakonasana, at Christina Sells workshop recently, and she talked about working the outer spiral of the front leg so much as to open up and expose the light to the darkness of the upper inner thigh. I loved that!!! That is what I want to do in my life. Continue to expose the darkness to the light. And my practice has been a wee bit in the darkness while I was shedding a lot of light on other things in my life. These other things needed light and attention and it was good and is good. And now that they are more stable and in the light, I can go back to practice practice practice.

Namaste'