December 11th, 2018

We All Need Someone

We all need someone we can lean on, someone to lift us up, and hold us accountable. On Sunday after class, two of my strong Yoga students asked if we could do a 30 day plank challenge together. I don’t usually like challenges or anything else that has an ending because Yoga is a Way of Life, the asana, the seat, the posture that never ends. What I do Love about challenges with a beginning and an end date is the community that they create, the habit that they form, and a way of life that it hopefully becomes. I have been offering the optional asana, 4 minute forearm plank at the beginning of my power yoga classes for a few years now and since I don’t do the physical asanas while I teach, I strive to do my own plank as many times a week as possible. I find it hard to do everyday without a challenge and I am thankful my students asked me to do this a few days ago. We are on Day 3. Join us if you want. If you have never done it, I recommend, doing one minute for a week, then 2, then 3, then 4, by the fourth week you will be doing 4 minutes with us.

I am grateful for my amazing strong students and fellow teachers and studentseverywhere I teach and practice. I know I can count on them to lean on, build me up, inspire me, and hold me accountable. You don’t have to teach or do yoga to “do the yoga” and you can teach and practice and not “do the yoga”. It is a way of life. My friend Sindy Warren wrote a great book called “Radi8" about the eight limbs of yoga. If you can, get a hold of a copy and read it.

Whatever we are doing, even though we are doing a lot of things in life alone, it helps to know we are never really alone. One my my fellow students asked me how I parented my kids when they were younger and fighting. I went through a really rough period with my kids, especially my son from age 3 or 4 to 6. I had to physically hold him down to stop him from hurting himself and others. There was a time when I thought I would have to send him away to live with his dad full time, who most of the time didn’t see a problem with his behavior and when he did, he blamed it on my “bad parenting”, or a place for children to live when their behavior can not be managed at home. I cried a lot after the kids went to bed. I felt like a failure, even though I was doing my best. I just kept going one breath at a time. I also reached out for professional help from a therapist recommended by our pediatrician and that helped me and my son a lot. If you have kids, it is nice to know when you are deep in the trenches of parenting, especially if you have more than one child, close in age, or multiples, that other people have gone and are going through the same thing. You are not a failure. You are doing an Amazing Job. I recently read this book called the “Conscious Parent.” It helped to read a little bit of it everyday. The main message is every behavior that we don’t like, from age toddler through adult child, is a cry for help. The child is saying “Please Help Me”. As parents we must Parent with Love and Be made of Steel.

You are Awesome! If you are working on getting stronger, mentally or physically. If you are working, if you are parenting, if you are working on something, toward something, whatever it is you are doing, know that You are made of Light, Love, and Strength. Have A Lot of Faith in Yourself. You will make it through!