This weekend marks the final module and graduation of my second class of yoga teacher trainees. We began the journey together back in September 2014 and to bear witness to their growth, insight and personal evolution is something that is simply astounding. I stand in awe of someone who is willing to make a large commitment of time, energy and financial resources to reach into experiences that can be confronting and quite uncomfortable. I have said to all the trainees that part of my job is to make them uncomfortable, to give them that gentle push to the edge of what they know and ask them to form their own identity of how they wish to express the practice of yoga.
Everyday we are confronted with lessons, often just small ones that pop up along the way. Perhaps I need to slow down, eat a bit less at lunch, go to bed earlier or be more mindful in my conversations. These are some of the life lessons crossing our daily path. Yet, laying below the surface lies a deeper and more profound lesson...what is my life teaching me? How are these challenging experiences meant to inform how I want to be in the world?
It has been said that a lesson needs to come before us three times before we actually recognize it as a lesson. It's as though we're strolling along and the lessons go whizzing past us until finally (perhaps the third time around) it seems to smack directly into us. When I was at university, I would push and push through semester and every break (EVERY break), I got sick. I ignored my body's message to slow down until finally, it would slap me with a cold or sinus infection. Here I was on break and sick...again. Of course that life lesson was that things were way out of balance and if I continued ignoring that I would continue to get sick.
Often the biggest lessons are the hardest ones...grief, life-threatening illness, financial loss or natural disasters. These events happen to all of us and so my thought of the week is "what have these events taught you?". Have they taught you to enjoy the present moment, trust that everything changes, to express love and follow your passion? Or have they taught you that life is unfair, that bad things happen to good people, that the rich get richer and the poor continue to suffer? Have your experiences fostered a sense of cynicism or a sense of hopefulness? Part of our yoga practice is learning to be comfortable even when things are uncomfortable. It teaches us that although life might be extraordinarily challenging we can find joy lying deep within the heart of us. We can connect to the basic human trait that all beings have a wish to be safe, happy, healthy and to live with ease.
So what is your life currently teaching you? What are you extracting from the challenges that you're facing? And can you see the deeper lesson that is floating just below the surface?
I asked this question of a class this past week, "how do you hear what your life is trying to teach you?". To which someone replied, "hopefully you hear it in moments of stillness". Ahhhh!!! So if we get still, if we create time and space for sitting in meditation, stillness or quiet contemplation, we more readily see what lies within. In that seeing we gain insight into how to find greater recognition of the lesson and to begin to find ease with it.
I have had many types of lessons throughout my life, one of the most profound being the death of my father when I was 19 years old and he was 46. As tragic as that was in our young lives, it left an indelible life lesson...life is short and to be valued. It has taught me to not spend time in drama or in relationships that don't lift me up. It has taught me to create and do. It has encouraged me to see the world now, not when I'm retired, or too old or don't have enough money or time. It's taught me to enjoy the present moment and it has taught me to create a life that has connection, purpose, meaning and introspection. I didn't know it when it happened. Those life lessons have revealed themselves over many years.
So what's your lesson? Are you listening?
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