Why I want to be a
yoga teacher (and other things). From Kat I was watching the Perks of Being a Wallflower the other
day. I love how Charlie says, I can’t
take it, the way they are all in pain.
It’s why I chose my career. It’s
depressing to see myself and the people around me make mistakes, live in fear,
and settle for the wrong choices. Why do
we do that? I want to laugh. I’ve met plenty of people who wanted to
die. But death isn’t the end. Our soul goes on, it wants to experience and
understand, and so it tries this life again.
So death is really an illusion.
You can’t escape this life. You
have to try to live fiercely. You can’t
give up on love or friendship, or wonderful moments. When I’m making a difference with my
acupuncture practice and as a yoga teacher, I can feel how I’m making the world
the way it should be, filled with light and love. I really want to be that beacon of light for
people who are in the dark, or sad and alone and fearful. Because It doesn’t have to be like this. It’s a choice. Chose every moment to live more fiercely. Roar a little. Let it out.
Don’t stiffen up and try to shut love and joy out in order to protect
your heart. A lot of people talk about enlightenment, but I think many of
us don’t understand what that means. In
the Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie asks his English teacher,” Why does
everyone I know chose people who treat us like crap?” The teacher says, “we accept the love we
think we deserve.” But I think it goes deeper than that. When we accept less in our lives…when we
settle for things that aren’t right for us…when we don’t follow our passions or
open our hearts…we are letting the darkness in.
These things do profound damage to the soul and to the body. I was talking only yesterday to a patient
about how pain starts on the emotional level.
The people who are healthier are often doing things to release the pain
of this life. They may have transformative
experiences in a yoga class, or find themselves releasing tension and tearing
up at the relief. They may talk it out
with friends who love them. They may
come in pain for acupuncture, and find themselves finally relaxing and falling
asleep when they have not been able to rest their minds or their bodies the
whole week. As a society, we cut ourselves off constantly. We wear invisible metal shields to prevent
ourselves from feeling, from experiencing, from getting hurt. We tighten up the moment pain comes. We try to stop it, to push whatever might
cause pain away. I do this, but I see it
in everyone. We are a society in
crisis. Life is hard, relationships are
hard, and too often, rather than open up to the pain of what the difficult
moments are teaching us, and thus transforming, we shut down and close ourselves
off. This damages the people we interact
with. But it also damages us, creating
disharmonies and disease. It cuts us off
from love and light. So what does enlightenment really mean? I think it means having a heart fully open. You accept the experiences you
encounter. You laugh. You find joy.
You make jokes with even raw moments, because it is good to play and not
take the dramas too seriously. But you
are also honest. Totally honest. No BS.
You open to all the love and light that the universe will give you. You don’t push away love or kindness from
anyone, and you give the same back freely.
You cry when you are sad, rather than trying to push away the
emotions. You are not shut down. By doing all of this, you begin to transform. It changes you. Your vibration becomes one less in line with
all the fear and the darkness, and instead becomes one more in line with love
and light. You become a beacon of light,
and in the process, you set on fire all the people around you, so that they too
can become beacons. This is what getting
acupuncture treatments is really all about.
This is the journey that having a regular yoga practice is all about. You
work these things out, and work on staying open, and not shutting down. It is a practice, but it is one that can
truly change us, and everyone we know.
Working this stuff out is why we are on this earth. It’s why we are here. So why do I want to be a yoga teacher? Because I want to be a beacon. But I also think it’s really important to
have the physical practice of yoga in order to open up the soul. By not letting ourselves tighten up, by
twisting and bending and opening, we keep our soul open and flexible to
everything around us. This practice
helps us change into the people we want most to be. I want
to help others on this journey, just as I have people who help me with my
journey. Let’s light up the dark and
roar. Live fiercely, baby! |
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