To Feel

To feel is to have pleasure. 

To feel is to be alive. 

As a culture we associate feeling as being inferior, with having too many emotions and being "feminine" in nature. We are told to "fake it til you make it." That is the last thing I ever want to be known for. When you don't feel you miss out on life. Who wants to always be happy? To never know pain is to never truly live. Imagine if you could not physically feel anything. You could not feel if you were touching the ground, if someone was touching you. That feeling of safety and grounding would disappear. Now relate that to your emotions. I have truly experienced all sorts of issues this year that take up a lot of space in my head.  I had reached this place where I could no longer analyze, the walls had been built up for so long and I let them all just crash down. I held on to all these issues thinking I had to solve them and be the hero. I hurt so badly that nothing affected me anymore. I was numb, especially in my yoga practice. I would go in, lay down my mat, practice and then roll up my mat and leave. But subtle changes were happening which slowly led to my break down.

Last night felt so amazing after I just let everything out. I cried for the first time maybe this year and then I cried again today. It was detoxifying, liberating and closure that I needed. But it was the amazing people around me that made it even sweeter of an experience. They surrounded me and embraced me, no words were needed. Just the feeling of someone next to me was all I needed.

Yoga allows you to feel the body as deep or as shallow as you allow it to. How can you change the way you feel in class? By staying in savasana longer, crying in the middle of class and laugh when you fall out of ardha chandrasana (half moon). We feel the body as it shakes and as it stretches. Become an active participant in your body. Don't just be a body in the room, be a source of energy and support for others in the class. Be aware that we are all in different places, some very good and some are in very dark places.

We are ALL not at our full capacity but we ALL work towards it everyday. I have been hurt and I am not afraid to tell you how bad it hurts. As my mother would always tell me, "you can get better or you can get bitter." So what do you choose? Will you choose to let those situations drag you down into the mud with you or will you rise above those situations and be the change. I have this scar on the back of my arm. I no longer have skin there because it was burnt off from a motorcycle engine. I hated that scar for so long and I was bitter about it. I even paid a plastic surgeon to remove as much of it as possible. I was unable to get rid of all of it and I slowly learned to embrace it. To love that part of my life that has given me such a sweet appreciation for each moment, each day and each person that comes into my life. What is so symbolic of this scar is that I cannot feel anything in that area of my body. You can be scarred so much by  your past that you lose all feeling in that area. I will never have feeling there but I do have the rest of my body. In fact, I have the rest of my life to feel, to cry, to smile and to change. It is a sweet journey that we are on. 

In order to touch the lives of others you have to be sensitive and allow yourself to be a channel in which to serve others and be able to feel what they are feeling. I have felt pain that I hope none of you ever experience. I just want to be sensitive and allow myself to smile and embrace you when you feel pain and hurt. I am here as your teacher, your friend and as a fellow human being that has felt deep pain and immense joy! I hope to be someone that has touched your life, that has given you hope in your time of need.