Coming home.

I begun my yoga teacher training 5 weeks ago now at the beautiful Sukha Mukha studio in Bronte here in Australia. If I think about the shifts that have taken place within me and around me it feels like 5 years ago. I have 16 new additions to my family all from this liberating, emotional and exciting journey.

It's so much more then what you may think a yoga teacher training entails. Well, I guess some of them are just focused on being able to teach the perfect handstand but for Sukha Mukha, and many others out there, it is filled with all different avenues into yoga philosophies. Avenues into how we can access our higher selves and access the divine.

A word that kinda freaked me out at first but now makes so much sense. When we think about god, the divine, our highest self it can be anything. From us in our joyous, happiest and most wonderful self, to a higher being that we can believe in or devote ourselves to. Be it your children, your parents, a particular god or just the universe.
 

Sharon Gannon of Jivamukti Yoga

 The word god no longer makes me run a mile. Instead it has taken form in a way I can understand (one that doesn’t always have to mean jesus). It’s a really beautiful concept and one I have taken into my yoga practice and, little by little, my life. Instead of practicing for a firmer bum (that of course is nice), I dedicate my energy and love towards my nephew, my mum, the universe or anyone that may need it. They are all the divine.

I have always believed in something up and out there but never really knew what it was. I think a lot of us do but, with the loading placed on some words like god, guru or even spirituality, we shy away from labeling it. Finally embracing yoga philosophy has led me to break that and call It my own divine, my higher self. This journey and all the people I have met within it have given me permission to embrace all of these things that I was once afraid of.

 

From the moment I sat down on that cushion on the first day in awe of all these beings beside me, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be. I’m not really sure I have ever had that feeling in its entirety before. Perhaps in a fragmented form, but I think for most part my noisy mind would have been wandering off to somewhere else I could or should have been. I can't even describe what it felt like. It was like I was experiencing a few moments of enlightenment. No, I wasn’t levitating in India with gurus, I was sat on a floor in Bronte!

It was right after our teacher had spent around an hour introducing herself, being generous with her story and experiences thus far.  She is raw, real and feisty with passion, kindness and compassion bursting out of her like fireworks. I could listen to her talk for days. She reminded us how perfect we all are and to let go of any expectations we may have or worries that we had brought in the door. Just to remain exactly as we are because that’s enough. We are enough: Complete and perfect exactly how we are, whatever and however that may be. All we had to do was to show up and give everything we had in that given moment. Nothing more and nothing less.

Now, for me and I’m sure for most people, that was the first time I have been into any kind of environment especially a learning one and been told that I am exactly where I need to be, exactly as I am, with everything I need within me. And those words were said with compassion and from a completely genuine place. This feeling of utter relief poured over me like finally there was nothing to live up to, no one to try and be or conform to. Reminding me that wherever I am in this journey, be it a bad place or a fabulous one, it was ok. It was valid.

She said many things after that but all I remember is looking around me at all these faces, soaking up the energy in that space, in that moment and feeling totally at home. Finally I was home not to a particular place but to a feeling.

Those words weren't merely thought but felt in my heart in their entirety. Finally, all those doubts of: Am I ready for this? Am I good enough? All the same boring noise that has filled my mind for so long, that fills most of ours minds for so long just floated away and I knew I had arrived exactly where I was always going to. To yoga.

Until the next time - Love and light.

Hells.x

 

 

 

Beauty in the 'Boring'

I think inspiration can come from any source. Mostly we look for it in things that are seemly complete or wholesome, somewhere or someone that we want to be like in its final ‘perfect’ form. It’s shiny, pretty and abundant. Well this last few months here in Wollongong whilst delving into my yoga teacher training i have also been on another journey. An unintentional one of being inspired and humbled by the opposite of all those things. Inspired by the mundane, the ‘normal’ and for the best part, the people/places that society deem boring.

I have worked in countless offices over the last few years, different towns, countries and industries with every Tom, Dick and Harry you can think of. All for the cause of earning money for the next trip. Whilst the travelling has opened my eyes and mind to a whole new world, equally so has the work imbetween.  When I think back at how often I dreaded this part of the travelling lifestyle it was actually a journey within itself. One that restored my faith in people, in the unsung heros or inspirations of the communities that we all live in.

Recently I have been working in an office with people that I haven’t really ever spent an extended period of time with. People that have only ever worked in that office there whole working lives, in the same town and for the best part don’t own passports. I was guilty at first of exchanging pleasantries and defaulting to keeping myself to myself, saying the hellos and how are you then never really going much further. Until one day a month I sat there and thought, I come into this room for 8 hours a day 5 days a week but know nothing about these people that sit within 10ft of me? Sure I know their names and what they did roughly this weekend but that’s it? All these people have stories, unique lives all unfolding in totally different ways. Why am I not getting to know them? Learning from them? Being inspired or inspiring them?

It got me thinking how many times I have done this, that we have all done this! The person that you buy your coffee off of everyday, that serves you in the supermarket or sits next to you from a different department in the lunch room. How do we know they are not the next Elizabeth Gilbert, Leona Lewis or just a really blady good person of tomorrow? Now im not suggesting that everyone is going to be the next big thing or that indeed they need to be. My point is that there is this whole world of people that we could be connecting with that we don’t. In our age we are so drawn to the ‘inspiring blogs, Instagram or facebook accounts when really the inspiration is on our doorstep, in our faces everyday but are we really embracing it?

Since embarking on this journey, I made a promise to not be irritated by the different ways the people I work with, instead to be patient and embracive of them. To listen and be a little more caring or open toward them. What I have found has been so humbling, inspiring, on occasions moved me to tears and without a shadow of a doubt reminded me yet to again that there is so much beauty in the seemily mundane.

 

Hellsx