Growth...

I've been thinking a lot lately about business related growth. It's a hard topic for me to make sense of on several levels.

Personally our family is going through a bit of a rough period, which makes taking any risk scary, especially when finances are involved. And so I start to wonder if the path I choose to follow 2 years ago (leaving a full time job to focus on my wellness business) was the right one, or if my jump was a bit premature in relationship to our family's financial needs. However, I've also learned that even through adversity the income I bring into the house is enough to make a significant impact on our family. I find so much peace in the fact that, that income has been generated by doing something I LOVE, not just because I'm a competent employee in a position that pays the bills, but doesn't necessarily feed my soul. But let's be honest here, growth of a business requires resources. And so I find it difficult to think about devoting investment dollars right now to my business, when my primary concern is keeping my family housed, clothed, and fed.

I've learned a lot about myself over the past 2 years. About my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to owning/running/promoting a business. I've experienced both joys and frustrations. And I've had the chance to think beyond that first necessary step of leaving the safety of my full-time employment, to what I'd like the future picture of my business to encompass. I'm passionate about mind-body wellness. I'm passionate about yoga. I'm passionate about the human body. I'm passionate about promoting wellness in a way that teaches people how to live fully in their bodies, taking full advantage of it's abilities, while nurturing those areas we can't physically see...our minds, our spirits. I love teaching asana classes, but I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE talking to people about wellness, yoga practice beyond the mat, and conscious living. So when I look forward at where my business is headed, I want it to encompass all of those things. And I see that happening in my own (or a cooperative) dedicated space.

But I can't just go from here to there. There's gotta be some steps along the way. And it's those steps I'm starting ponder. Is it time for me to start offering the local community some focused workshops? How can I get out into the community to dialogue with people about these passions? How do I make that transition from studio teacher to community consultant? These are questions I'm pondering as of late.

Any advice or examples of how you yourself have made these transitions in your own business would be greatly appreciated.

On a side note, Yoga Journal is hosting a conference in Wisconsin this spring. A fact I've been aware of for quite some time. Being in my "neighborhood" I don't see how I can miss it. So today I did some poking around and learned they have a scholarship program. I'm hoping I may be considered a worthy candidate for said program so that I can indeed attend the conference. Where there's a will, there's a way. Right?

namaste

An Open Arm Welcome...

I stole away to Madison for the weekend with some dear friends. As we were merging into city traffic on Friday night, check out the welcome message we received! I couldn't resist snapping a picture. (And no, I was not driving.)

As chance would have it, there was a yoga studio, Jewel in the Lotus, just 2 blocks down the street from my friend Marie's apartment. Laura and I ambled down for a Saturday morning Slow Flow class with Connie. It's always such a treat to just be a student in class, and it was extra special sharing Laura's first yoga class experience with her. The studio is in an old building, meaning it has lots of character. The tall walls are painted a bright yellow with hot pink trimming, topped by a great old tin ceiling. The floors have been redone in a beautiful natural wood. It's a wonderfully inviting space. Plus it was warm. Our studio is much cooler than I would like being as we're a multi-purpose facility, so it was so nice to sweat with little to no effort!

It's hard for me to walk into a class and not judge. Not in a snobby way. I appreciate so many forms of practice and realize as instructors we're all in various places in our practice and our experience sharing what we have studied. I guess I just have a hard time shutting off my instructor brain at times. I have high standards in regards to my own accountability in relationship to the experience I offer students who walk into my classes and I guess I extend those expectations to any class I walk into as a student too. Overall it was a nice easy flowing practice. A perfect way to start off our day after a long afternoon of traveling the day before. The class was small and I found it pretty easy to keep my attention on my breath and my movement, aware of little that was happening beyond the confines of my mat. I'll gladly return for a class the next time I find myself visiting Madison.


Namaste Madison, Namaste

Still Here...

I haven't fallen off the blog wagon again, just been a little preoccupied. But I wanted to take a moment to write, because when there is need for hearts to heal and find peace, who better to ask for warm intentions than my yoga community.

My brother (as well as several other families and individuals) is currently dealing with a tragic, unfortunate loss. While I'm not comfortable sharing the details of the situation (it's not my information to share) I want to ask for your thoughts, prayers, intentions, whatever you use in your practice to extend love and peace to those around you and to the greater universe. I will be doing my practice, and teaching my classes, this week with my brother and the many others touched by this unfortunate event in my heart. Extending them love in hopes that through the coming days, weeks, and months, they should be able to find the comfort of peace and healing.

Thanks for opening your hearts as well.

I'll be back later in the week. I've got a couple posts "written" in my head including a comment about the latest issue of Yoga Journal and my experience with my Down-Dog as part of Brenda's Asana Project over at Grounding Thur The Sit Bones.


namaste

With Courage and Grace...

After attending a couple of conference sessions with Max Strom this past spring, I signed up to receive his monthly e-newsletter. It's often filled with wonderful words of insight and encouragement that always make me take a moment to stop and think. Today's newsletter was no exception.

"Today we cannot pretend to know the outcome of these global financial events. Catastrophes create new opportunities. Often when things explode in our face, they also blow open new doors. We can reinterpret this negative situation into A Wakeup Call for Action and Wisdom.

To have our courage stripped away by others is something we cannot afford to let happen. Money and property can be taken away by others, but our strength of spirit and human good is ours alone to keep or give away." ~ Max Strom

With the current state of world affairs, shortly following what has been a trying year for me and my family on a personal basis, it's nice to be reminded that we posses the strength to weather this storm...and that we can choose to do so with Grace. I am thankful that my yoga practice and the small local yoga community (and larger global yoga community of which we are all part), combined with the loving support of friends and family, have allowed me to remain mostly positive, grounded, and strong through the past 15 months of adversity which my life has faced. I truly believe the strength and love I experienced/found during such a scary and difficult time has better prepared me to move forward in life, regardless of what struggles lie ahead.

I do worry about the state of our future. Of what the world will look like as my two young girls come of age and enter adulthood. However, I'm also optimistic that the human race can learn, can grow, and can readjust the state of affairs to make for a better world. I choose to move forward with strength, and grace, and hope, and courage. I hope that you will join me.


namaste

Self-Searching or Self-Serving?

I've been pondering the fine balance between these two points lately. At what point does living in the moment and self-discovery become a cover for self-absorption?

I don't really have thoughts to post on the subject at the moment. More a question for the universe.

Originally this wonder popped into my head regarding my frustration with a relationship with a loved one for whom I wished I ranked higher on the list of "people I connect with on a regular basis." Then I got to thinking....it's easy to point fingers when you feel like your getting the short end of the stick. And now I wonder, have I unintentionally turned someone away while traveling my path?

Pondering...


namaste

Crayons...

I received this quote in an email today:

We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box. ~ Unknown

I like it.


namaste

Coloring outside of the lines...

Tonight I did not let my art be determined by set expectations of what the finished picture would look like. I feel free.

I will admit, one of the reasons I've questioned my validity as a teacher lately is because I often feel as though I'm doing little more than going through the motions. The longest class that I teach is scheduled to be 60 minutes (we often run over by 5-10 minutes) and I routinely teach 30-45 minute classes that have a WIDE array of individuals who attend in relationship to age, ability, experience with yoga, etc. The nature of our practice is often to simply focus on asanas and I feel like I get very little, if any, time to talk about applying the principals of yoga to life off the mat.

A normal class looks like this:

• We find our breath.
• We flow with our breath, simply at first and then through Sun Salutations, to warm our bodies.
• We do a choosen set of standing asanas working strength and balance.
• We head down to the mat to work back bends, very occassionally (depending on the class) modified inverstions, and then calming seated poses on our way to final relaxation.
• We lie, we breath, we honor each other for coming together to practice, we roll up our mats and head our separate ways.

Duh you're saying. That's what classes look like. In fact, having attended classes in several styles, with a little tweaking here and there, I'd say most of us practice a similar sequence regardless of the tradition we follow.

Not to say there isn't good that comes from my classes. We breath. We sweat. We strengthen. We stretch. We open our hearts and our hips. Sometimes we even laugh. But lately I've felt the need for our time together to be more than merely going through the motions.

The hardest thing for me when stepping away from my "normal" class routine, is worrying about how individuals will "take" what I have to say. As I stated in class tonight, people come to yoga for various reasons. Some see it just as exercise; primary, complementary, or restorative/rehabilitative. Some have come to yoga through other practices such as meditation. Some have come to yoga as a part of their spiritual beliefs. We all have our reasons, and we all have our path, and regardless of WHY someone comes to yoga, we are all part of the yoga community and we should welcome and embrace each other equally. Yet I worry that those who came "just to exercise" will find my "lessons you can take off the mat" as hokey, while those whose practice extends beyond the boundaries of their mat find my classes shallow.

I originally came to yoga for it's restorative exercise offerings. As I've discussed with so many others who practice who originally viewed yoga as "simply" exercise, my practice has grown beyond the physical aspect of practicing asana. That growth is why I chose to become a teacher. And it is now, 9 years into my practice and 4 years into teaching, that I find I feel ready to move beyond "simply" leading students through asana and to start sharing some of yoga's life lessons. I have to admit, it's a scary jump to make when I've so comfortably followed the same class layout for so long. But growth can't happen without occassionally taking a chance, so tonight I decided it was time for a little step outside the safety of my normal boundaries.

Tonight we talked about grounding. About foundations. About finding stability so that from that stability we can grow and find ease in our efforts. I've talked about this topic before, but tonight I took it beyond where to place your feet (or hands) and how to spread your digits and lift from your arches. We did a couple simple grounding exercises with a partner that Matthew Sanford taught us in his conference session on prana at the Midwest Yoga Conference this past may. And then we discussed how we felt both before and after the partner assisted work. We transfered that new found sense of groundedness into standing poses and then added twists and then went into balances. We used a firm foundation in our palms to fly into Upward Facing Dog. And then we found our sit bones and we breathed and quieted and rested. At the end of our practice I shared how such a simple concept as finding one's grounding has helped me get through a period of time when my family has been dealing with upheaval and uncertainty. I honored their openness to stepping outside of the box with me in hopes that what I had to share can help them maintain a solid fountation in life.

I think they got it. At least a little bit. And I feel as though I have taken a big step in my continued growth as a student and teacher of yoga.

Thank you for sharing the slow blossoming of my growing with me.


namaste

Could it be Anusara?

I've posted before about my struggle with/thoughts about following one specific yoga philosophy and whether in order to be valid teacher and practitioner it's necessary to make that type of commitment. I don't mean to harp on this one topic, and I respect each individuals opinion on the topic and the path that each individual chooses to follow, but it's a question I continually ponder in relationship to my own practice and path as a teacher. This week I've been thinking a lot about the Anusara tradition following a class I took last Sunday.

A local dance professor who has studied yoga for about 6 years and who over the course of the past year has made a commitment to studying with the Anusara teachers at Shakti Yoga Shop in Des Moines is offering 4, 75-minute workshops at our studio this month in exchange for use of the studio space for a personal dance project. As an instructor who rarely gets to go to a class which I'm not teaching, what a treat it is to have this opportunity right here at my home studio!

I was first introduced to Anusara Yoga about a year ago when my friend and fellow yoga teacher, Monica, and I attended at workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh at Shakti Yoga (formerly Yoga On 5th). I walked into the first workshop session knowing basically nothing about the Anusara philosophy or tradition. I walked out feeling fabulous and without the normal knot in my mid-back that I had found tightened at the end of each week after teaching my normal full teaching schedule. A simple change in how I extended through my trunk and anchored my shoulders in Adho Mukha Svanasana proved to make a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE after just a few hours at the workshop! I have incorporated several of the alignment principals learned at Desiree's workshop that day into my teaching style, but other than picking up her DVD Yoga to the Rescue and obtaining a copy of the Anusara Yoga Teacher Training Manual in an effort to better understand some of the philosophy that this tradition is based upon, I hadn't given much thought to exploring more a study specifically to this one tradition. That is not until after last Sunday's class when once again, after ONE class I walked away feeling fabulous this time without my normal annoying lower back and sciatic discomfort.

Then mid week, after having taught most of my weekly schedule and having lower back pain and sciatic discomfort start to creep back into my body, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I think my BODY...not my MIND...has found its yoga. My MIND isn't so convinced as it has somewhat of a hard time wrapping itself around some of the Tantric based philosophy (but then that's nothing new...it's the same issue I have with fully following one religious tradition) that is so key to the concept of opening/surrendering to the Divine with grace in the Anusara tradition. Not to mention the long and intensive commitment that is required to become first an Anusara Inspired and then an Anusara Certified teacher. But maybe my MIND just needs to step aside and listen to my BODY for once.

My MIND is open to the idea of continuing exploring the concept of following this tradition that seems to work so well for my BODY. So off to explore the class schedule at Shakti Yoga I go, and then to figure out how I can afford to order this DVD set.


namaste

Choosing your focus...

In the his monthly email ad/newsletter today, the owner of Yoga Life Style wrote this:

About a year ago I started doing a practice that has changed my outlook and therefore, my life. It is very simple and I first heard about it in a news article on Yahoo.com and later went to the source, Matin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania and his learned optimism project. The practice, simply stated, is to spend a little time each morning reflecting on three good things that happened in my life the day before and explore what lead up to these three positive notes in my life. To help me focus on this I wrote them down. As I did this on a daily basis, I found I began to see the good things all around me in much higher relief and this somehow diminished my tendency to obsess on my problems. The problems are still here, but I'm less weighed down by them. I'm a bit lighter and I take things in stride a bit more. I also find it easier to deal with challenges as they arise. According to various studies, doing this every day for a week will improve your sense of happiness for at least 6 months and possibly forever. There is a lot of great stuff in this months offering, but this practice is the best. Try it for a week and let me know if you do or do not agree.

Peace, Ray (Yogeshvara OM)

I found what he had to say interesting because I know exactly what he means! When problems arise in life, my initial instinct is to focus all my attention and energy on analyzing and figuring out how best to fix things and make the problems go away. Before I know it, I've been consumed by my problems and they start to color everything else in my life a darker shade. I loose sight of all the positive things I have going on in life.

A few years back I had read an article somewhere that talked about refocusing your energy in relationship to problems. Basically doing what Ray talks about. Acknowledge that the problems still exist, but see them as part of a bigger whole rather than narrow your focus on that one tiny aspect of your life. It does WONDERS for me when I remember to broaden my view. Yes, the problems still exist and still need attention, but once I shift focus, solutions usually start to present themselves and life starts to more quickly turn towards reconciliation. The power of just that simple shift is amazing to me and I'm glad that someone is promoting such a practice through their study and research.

I don't always read through all the e-newsletters I receive throughout the month. This time I'm glad I took the time to scroll all the way down. I needed reminded to think about where my focus is looking as of late. I can feel breath deepen even as I type this....


namaste