My third trip to India was in my mid twenties, I had my twenty fifth birthday not long after arriving. My dad and I took the trip together and were pretty much best buds. I was teaching hatha yoga at that time, I was in great shape and pretty much loving life in general. One day my teacher spoke about gratitude as a spiritual practice. She said that if you even just said thank you, just for everything, once a day that it would transform your life. Her words really touched me and I decided to try it. Saying thank you to her was as natural as breathing for me, because she had given me, and my family too, so much. So that same day when I walked up to see her, I bowed as is the custom, and as I placed my forehead at her feet I quietly said thank you.
I did this every day for two weeks, and every day I would go to a particular chant with my dad afterwards. It was a very joyful fun chant, one of my favorites. On the fourteenth day, I was in that chant singing loud and proud ;-) when suddenly everything burst into golden light! I'm not kidding, it was like a joyful explosion! I grabbed my dad's arm and told him, "Dad! Everything is golden! Everyone is golden! It's incredible! Are you seeing this?" He laughed and said no, he wasn't, but he was clearly loving my reaction. I was laughing and so happy, so free and so full of love and joy! The golden light faded but I spent about two weeks feeling like I was walking on clouds! It was so beautiful!
Not long after that I remember going to see my teacher to ask her about something. Growing up I had always felt free to ask her anything. I feel so incredibly blessed to have had her in my life in this way. I've always been a very independent thinker and doer too. I don't tend to join group decisions or be swayed by peer pressure. But growing up with my teacher, I had experienced the depth of her vision and understanding many times. I knew to the core of my being that every single thing she told me was absolutely the most valuable and useful thing for me to hear and follow, in that moment. I knew from experience that if she gave me an instruction and I followed it, it would take me where I wanted to go. Even if I didn't know where I wanted to go, she always did, and she would light the way for me. I did not have this feeling or trust in anyone else, ha ha ha. My dad would get a good chuckle from that, if he were still in a body. Perhaps he is anyway. :-)
So, anyway, I went to ask her advice about... something, and she looked me square in the eyes and said, "Now it is time for you to go to your inner guru for your answers." Then she pointed at a hat that was in a pile next to the girl seated next to her and the girl handed me the hat. It was a rather comically large, beautifully crafted and quite fashionable, straw hat with a long pink crepe scarf wrapped around it and flowing down the back. It looked just like something from Alice in Wonderland, which turned out to be a bit prophetic, in my opinion. At that time I was surprised and a bit disappointed that she did not want to offer me advice, but I absolutely loved my new cool hat! I didn't understand until much later, quite recently in fact, how unusual and important that moment and her words were.
I moved to New York City not long after that, and started working as an assistant fashion stylist. The funny thing about that is that I had said many times that I never wanted to live in New York City. I had spent a month there when I was eighteen and visited many times, it wasn't that I didn't enjoy the city. I just felt it was absolutely not for me. Then as my third stay in India was coming to a close, I simply knew that New York was my next home. I could not have given a reason, and I don't think anyone ever asked for one. I loved living there too, I was there for six years.
About two or three years later I contemplated offering private hatha yoga lessons to make some extra cash. I wrote to my teacher, asking about this felt appropriate because I had become a hatha yoga teacher by her grace and at her behest, in fact. I received a letter back that seemed really strange at the time. It said that I had permission to teach yoga now and at any time in the future, not hatha yoga mind you just yoga. I am paraphrasing because I haven't read that letter in a couple of years, but that was the gist. I had very specifically asked about teaching hatha yoga, which is a series of postures that prepare a body for meditation and other spiritual practice. Yoga, however, is a much broader term on one hand and a much more finite term on the other. If you click on the quote below, it will take you to the page where I found it.
“The essence of yoga is to reach oneness with God.” - Pattabhi Jois
Many past moments fall together like puzzle pieces when I look back now. I have been walking towards this work for most of my life, perhaps all of it. Going to my inner gurus for answers, that is what I do now on a regular basis. Although now my inner gurus, or guides as I now call them, are pretty good at making themselves heard whether I'm trying to hear them or not. It sounds totally nuts, and it sometimes feels that way too. But I have had too many confirmations, I have heard too many weird crazy things come out of my own mouth that were totally new to me. Things that I did NOT want to say sometimes. Things I would try not to say, come out of my mouth and I am thinking, "Oh my GOD, zip your lip, girl!" From time to time I have resisted saying whatever it is that I am hearing. I've tried not to say it but it's as though the information is trying to push it's way out of me and finally I just have to let it out. Every time that has happened, it has been the perfect thing to say, and it's always ended with my client thanking me for the work.
I've heard other people speak of this experience, of feeling information or words pushed out of them, and it felt so relieving to know I'm not the only one, ha ha ha. That good old corroborative evidence! I've questioned my sanity at various times in my life for a variety of reasons, I suppose it's par for the course, and perhaps questioning my sanity is one of the ways that I hold onto it. That being said, I absolutely love what I do, I absolutely love it when I am able to help people find their own powerful internal connection to Divine Grace, in whatever way that works for them. I am often surprised at the amazing creative ways that connection shows up for people. That connection inspires my clients and helps them to let go of old patterns and to allow new possibilities they would not have thought existed. It's magical it really is, and it is ridiculously fun too. What could be better than that?
