Wow!~ Things are so good!
Teaching is finally feeling 100% normal again. I've realized that not having a local mentor is not a stumbling block to learning and growing as a yoga teacher, there are a million resources on line. I'm getting more involved in the local yoga community, as well. CorePower is awesome, its a great workout and I go to some sort of class almost every day (in general I do C2 3 times, sculpt 2 times, and hot yoga 1 time/week), but there is simply not a ton of community there. People go in, hit hat, then sit in the room before class, where they ask for silence. Afterwards everyone is so sweaty that they just head straight to the shower or home ~ not the community that I'm used to at a locally owned studio. Its wonderful, and a great workout, and I've found the teachers that I like best, but its a bit of a more selfish practice.
Teaching in FitZone has been awesome. I'm still training, but I'm getting into a pattern where I do the 8:30 workout, then shadow/mentor during the 9:30 session. We meet twice a week for about 7 hours for training. In an exciting development, I've decided to get my personal training certification. I'm going to do ACE (there are several different paths to accreditation, ACE will be great for what I actually need). The head of the FitZone is an inspiring and super upbeat woman who I have come to admire greatly. I like the shift in energy ~ I mean, for a yoga teacher to be wearing a MIKE is such a weird transition! I love it though ~ I feel like this is a perfect compliment to the other side of my personality. I need yoga. The fact is, I also need community and hard work outs! This is providing both.
We woke up to a little bit of snow this morning. Its going to be a busy week ahead, so I'm using today to begin to get prepared. We are hosting Thanksgiving this year, we will have 14 or 18, so it should be pretty low key but enjoyable. We were going to do a turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning, but when I went to register us this week I realized that the entry fees would make the race out $165 for all of us. Now. I'm no cheapskate, but we live in COLORADO, where there are literally trails everywhere. Everywhere! I'm not paying $165 to run 3 miles with my kids! Nuts. I've been lagging on Marathon training, but being almost 6 months out I'm not too worried. I'm considering hiring a coach to put together a plan for me. The truth is, I just want to finish and not get injured. Thats my goal, my only goal. I want to enjoy my training and really focus on my overall health, and go have a great time running with a friend in a beautiful place. I have no pace goals at all. I'm just not that runner anymore. Running is fun, its a nice compliment to other things in my life, but I don't have that single minded obsession that I had with running for a while.
The kids are awesome. Its been a really great year of school so far ~ the kids are happy, they have great teachers, they have great friends. They are involved and invested in our community. Soccer was fantastic this fall, and now we are on to wrestling and basketball. We found a GREAT Bball league for Julia, and I love seeing her out on the court practicing with her new team for hours each week. The boys are back on the mat and also working hard. The most difficult part of sports is always practice ~ currently the kids all have practice Monday nights, wrestle Tus, Bball wed, wrestle Thursday. Sat is wrestling meets and Sunday is Basketball games, once games start. Its busy! I don't mind it, generally, but man is it a lot of time in the car. Tuesday night I didn't even get in from driving everyone around until 9:30 at night ~ thats about an hour later than I used to GO to bed. I'm teaching Tuesday, Wed, Thursday. That alone is such a HUGE shift, when I started out as a teacher weekends were my best time to teach because it was the only time I could positively count on Nate's help to watch the kids. Now that they are in school all day, weekdays are best. We are planning at least one 4 day ski trip each month, and weekends have become more precious as family time with the way nate has been traveling over this past year. I'm happy to pick up sub work on weekends, but I like the pressure of not having to be committed on weekends most of the time.
I've been struggling to find words of affirmation lately. The presidential election of last year did something to me. The continued mass shootings have done something to me. The arguing, the hate, the anger......all have done something to me. I used to have a real fire, a real passion, a real belief that I could enact change in the world. I've lost that. I'm not depressed. I'm not negative ~ I'm just jaded. The problems of the world feel so all encompassing, so neverending, that I feel overwhelmed by them. I see the same friends shouting the same things on the same social media platforms and I simply don't get it anymore. Social media feels more and more like an echo chamber. I see all of these "yoga teachers" focusing on their social media presence and their filters and poses and #hashtags and exposure......where is the karma yoga? Where is the call to make the world a better place? I can tell you with certainty that taking a photo of yourself doing yoga is vain. I did it, and I admit it. I'm trying to imagine explaining to my Grandmother how I take my clothes off and contortion my body and take a photograph of myself and then put it on the internet with the purpose of................of what? Thats where I keep getting stuck. What is the PURPOSE? Its self glorification. There is nothing to glorify about anything that is entirely that self focused. The more I teach, the more I live, the more I realize that we are all exactly the same. We have joys, we have problems. We have mountaintops, we have valleys. I'm nothing but a voice in the room, just another person, like them, no better, no worse. I have no business presenting myself an authority on anything related to how anyone else should live. Life is HARD, and really, at the end of the day, the things that bring me joy are my relationships. If yoga can teach me how to be even better at relationships, yoga is helpful. If yoga becomes something that separates me from others (look how amazing I am! Look at my leg! Look at ME ME ME", what am I doing to help foster relationships? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Today is going to be luxurious. The boys left at 7 am for a Tournament up near Boulder. Julia and I have a great girls day planned ~~ I'm going to jump on the Peloton for 45 minutes and then continue cleaning and painting. We have a yoga class together at 12, lunch at Lyfe Kitchen afterwards, and some fun mother daughter shopping planned. Tomorrow we are getting family photos taken for the first time in a few years, so I have to pull that together quickly. We head into the holiday season whole and happy. I hope that everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving!
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