** All April 1st Classes are happening as regularly scheduled: 9:30am flow, 1pm Nidra, 6pm Restorative. **
Below is the main excerpt from our weekly Love Note. Click here to see our full Love Note with class and workshop announcements.
This Love Note Newsletter is a little different because in the past week I’ve had 7 different conversations (SEVEN!) around this concept of Living the Dream and Following your Bliss. So I thought instead of telling you about all the wonderful things coming up at Love…(scroll to the bottom)… I’d share my thoughts on this, and a few other relevant quotes … because it has in fact had a lot to do with the reason we have Love Yoga today. I now look back and see that the desire to believe in that possibility is largely what drove me to keep searching.
Follow Your Bliss . . .
and other seemingly cliché pieces of life advice I’ve thoroughly investigated
1. Follow your Bliss
2. Go with your gut
3. Don’t stop Believin’
4. Do what you Love
5. Live your Dream
6. see below
People tell me all the time how lucky i am to be ‘doing what I love’. And in my mind I immediately ask myself . . . Am I really though? Of course I am… living the dream. I’m self employed. I make my own schedule. I practice yoga for a living. I meet and connect with the most amazing people every single day. Much of my work can be done from my phone, my house, a coffee shop, my car, the coast.
I spent 35 years in various fields searching for ‘my thing’. Do you know how many people told me… ‘not everyone has a thing’. Or, ‘stop trying so hard and just enjoy life’. Or, ‘you’re never gonna be happy with the way things are.’ Or, ‘Albany is never going to support a yoga business’. Or my favorite…. ‘What’s the big deal about yoga anyway… it’s just fancy stretching’. ; )
Deep down, I knew. I knew I wasn’t here to sell advertising, insurance, melamine or mortgages. ( or rainbow vacuums, discovery toys or insect repellent ).
When I first discovered yoga – thankfully it wasn’t a completely woo woo, chakra cleansing, mantra chanting, sage burning experience or I’d have run for the hills. (all of which I’m semi okay with now ; ) (We’re all about the frankincense!) No, this yoga was simple, sensible and I could do it.
It was an immediate sense of calm along with the surprising relief of chronic neck pain. I was intrigued by the subtle sense of spirituality and the gradual and complete elimination of anxiety. I could hear myself think and I slept all night for the first time in years.
The longer I practice, the less I need to. I don’t mean that I don’t need to practice. I mean that if I don’t practice every single day… I don’t lose those feelings. I still get on my mat almost every day for one reason. I care about myself.
I want to connect to that calm feeling. I want to hold still and be quiet and hear myself sort things out. That’s my meditation. And that’s when all the good ideas show up. Things like softer floors, colorful curtains, Portland yoga tours, yoga nidra classes, Tee Shirt ideas, training activities, workshops, writing this newsletter, holiday campaigns, 70s playlists, LOVE stickers and more!
It’s also the space that helps me sort out running the business. It’s SO much harder than I expected. This ‘living my dream’ also includes balancing books, consistent scheduling, maintaining marketing, insurance, certifications and regulations. Writing this newsletter, making payroll, taxes and giving up all the security that comes with a job like benefits, vacation time and a paycheck.
So to clarify… I’m not specifically LIVING MY DREAM or FOLLOWING MY BLISS. But clichés or not, all five quotes have had a tremendous impact on me.
I AM GOING WITH MY GUT that yoga can help everyone as I’ve seen it happen with myself and many, many, many of you. I have never felt this happy, this healthy, this strong and this brave. I care about this on a level so deep that I know I will NEVER STOP BELIEVING that I am suppose to be providing space, conversation, exploration and healing that comes with this practice.
And # 6: DON’T GO IT ALONE. If it weren’t for our amazing Love Crew, ALL of you, Some incredible support and encouragement… we wouldn’t have made it past the first ‘Namaste.’
So yes, I found my thing. My passion, my purpose, my people. And it doesn’t matter if I’m loving what I’m doing every second… because I care so much more about what it’s becoming.
But to be honest… if I were truly DOING WHAT I LOVE . . . I’d be this generation’s Dr. Seuss.
You matter to me
You really do
You matter to me
And I matter to you
We matter, we two
We really do
I matter to me and
You matter to You.
I breathe slow
Wherever I go
It keeps me strong and smart
It frees my mind
from things unkind
so I can follow my heart
And what about this 8 minutes or less thing??
CLARITY IN 8 MINUTES OR LESS . . .
Clarity comes in the quietest or least distracted moments. When you’re brain is not embroiled in problem solving or planning. When you’re showering, vacuuming, fishing, running, painting, knitting, writing, meditating, etc. When you let go of trying to ‘figure things out’ and put yourself in a state of flow…. often while doing something you enjoy that takes all your concentration.
In that state… focus on just one thing. Ask yourself ONE question. ‘What do I want?’, ‘Who am I?’, ‘What now?’.
Usually the complicated part of this… is that it takes about 8 minutes to get your mind to quiet and your nervous system to relax. This is when you can completely focus. Figure out for you…. what are you willing to do for 8 minutes to get your mind into a state of flow.
Do that. And then listen closely.
