Embracing Change

Nov 3

Probably the greatest frustration I have as a fitness instructor and yoga teacher is not inspiring the people I know would most benefit from these practices.

For instance, when someone very close to you in your life suffers from weight gain, anxiety, or mild depression and is openly wallowing in dissatisfaction about their situation, I would LOVE for them to ask for my help.

I would LOVE for them to read up a bit on yoga and how it can help alleviate anxiety, and as I know from experience, completely transform your body.

I wish the people I loved most found what I do to be useful. As I know it transformed me, I know it could transform them as well.

What I see more often though, is people in pain with pitifully closed minds about options to better their situations. What I often see is a society of victims, of first class pity parties and why-me woes.

At the end of the day, as a citizen of America and this planet, I believe it is partially my duty to light a fire under many people's asses and get them to MOVE.

What I see so frequently are people who are STUCK. I see them getting more and more and more stuck. In their ways, in the very things and situations that got them so stuck in the first place…

My dharma, my purpose, is to inspire and motivate. To teach people that they themselves are POWERFUL and CAPABLE.

I am only as good as the people around me, and there is a lot of work to do yet until I feel I've made a difference.

I too have suffered from sadness, depression, letheragy, rage, anger, pain, laziness, etc.

Though there are inherently hard times in anyone's life, I am sick of watching people complain and continue their self-destructive cycles. I am here to snap people out of their habitual bullshit.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

What about the teacher who has spent years studying to save not only herself, but her family and friends around her? When will her students be ready?

The people in pain are already living the consequences of their close-mindedness. They are upset about how they look or how they feel, or both. They want things to get better, but refuse to take any steps to shift absoltely anything.

I am here to teach release and fluidity, to shifting what is stagnant. To recommend self-care practices that I truly believe can transform your life, or at least provide moments of release and peace.

I am doing all of what I'm doing to help people and do not want to become jaded in the process.

As all social workers know, it can be demanding to take care of so many others, so many dysfunctions people…….. How do we learn to care for ourselves so we can care for others?

At the end of the day, our own limitations limit not just us, but those around us.

Someone who complains about their weight for years, crying, snapping at those who try to help, sitting sheathed in guilt for all that they've ate and drank, all the exercise they haven't done.

But you know what they're missing? Doing the damn work! Rise up, world. People: see your potential! If you could shake hands with your very best self, how would you feel?

Humiliated that you've failed so horridly at life that you are nowhere close to what you want to most be? Your fault. Get off your ass and start over right NOW. The time is always NOW.

Look in the mirror, face hard realities, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Change, all else is madness quote.

Accountability. ACTION. Results WILL come. You reap what you sow.

If you bitch about not reaping, look forward to bitching about not sowing.

Do the damn work.

Patience, persistence, and compassion.

The breath. Your heartbeat. Awareness. Presence. Consciousness. Witnessing. The background. The space between the breaths.