Not A Trip, A Journey

I have been attempting to plan a  “big” trip for a while now.

I thought last year when my birthday rolled around I would be somewhere fabulous, Paris perhaps? Instead I was knee deep in moving, leaving my home of 22 years, downsizing, moving, alone, into an apartment.  Upending my whole life.

Don’t get me wrong, it was time, my life needed changing and I am so glad I did that.

It was, however, a big birthday and I admit to a certain sense of entitlement I was feeling around that. I SHOULD be doing something wonderful, I SHOULD be celebrating in style. Well, like I said, it turned out that I was doing something wonderful, and this last year has been awesome.

When my birthday came  around this year I already knew I wasn’t going to be anyplace special, but I also had in my head that I would take some kind of cool vacation in late September/early October. The  problem was I just could not decide what I wanted to do. I have been thunking about  this and researching it for months. I have a zillion  miles on my American Express card and figured between that and some added cash I could head to Europe,but where?  Then I had the idea that I would get in my car and just drive. I have friends all over the country, I love driving and road trips and I could take maybe 3 weeks and just go. I started mapping out routes and length of travel between destinations. Again, though, there was this nagging feeling of REALLY? Is this really what I want to do? Planning a trip seemed like so much fun, but actually taking it seemed, I don’t know, off in some way. Wrong.

In the meantime I had been scribbling ideas on paper, sort of half-assed vision boards, of what I wanted the rest of my life to look like.  I let myself go wild and so much of it is impossible and funny. I did however notice a recurring theme, having to do with my Yoga practice.

One of the very best things I have ever done for myself is to start a regular Yoga practice. When I first moved that was a commitment I made to myself. I attended a lot of classes at different studios all offering  the obligatory free week. One place was too corporate and cookie-cutter. Another too hard ass and physical results oriented. I can only take a little bit of hot Yoga (no Bikram zone here!), and some studios frankly, did not feel  welcoming to ME, older, clumsier, target Yoga pants vs. Lulemon. I wasn’t upset by this, I do live in L.A. after all, but they were obviously not the studios for me.

The last place I tried was the studio where I have been going for my 11th step practice.  Once I started there I fell in love. The teachers, the classes, the other students. I felt that they  were teaching YOGA there, which really started before the moves were even invented. Yogic principles, mindfulness and a sense of welcome inclusion made this the studio that has become my home.

I wasn’t really surprised when a nagging thought about how to deepen my practice started rolling around in my head. I began going to more classes, chatting with teachers and other students and as I did that I realized just exactly how yoga was working me…not  just physically, but mentally and spiritually also.

I began meditating on  how to move forward in all aspects of my life and  feeling that Yoga was an important key in that.  As I explored and talked to my Yoga mentors, as I meditated and wrote and made more lists and even  had a psychic reading, I got more and more corroboration that the universe was leading me on the right path.

I am now officially signed up for Yoga Teacher Training. Beginning September 5 through November 23 my weekends will be all Yoga all the time. There will be lots of studying and taking other classes….its immersion, basically. I am so excited and sure of this decision. I feel amazing.

I don’t know if I will ever teach.  I do have ideas, amidst all those scraps of paper, of how I can utilize what I learn in grief work, how I can train and possibly do 11th Step Yoga, how my age can be an advantage with students who are older or less confident….but truthfully I am trying to not think past the 12 weeks of training.

I have committed to trying to live my life by doing the next right thing a day at a time, and this is it.  I am re-committed to the YES.

The ability to write here and be me and go  through things with the support of this community has been so helpful, and I am  grateful. I will have a lot of studying to do and, as  I haven’t been in school for a zillion years, I am admittedly worried about anatomy and Sanskrit.  I am going to wean myself from too much FB, limit my computer time and try to experience this to the fullest. I have recovery meetings I need to get to, a sponsee,  my grief groups to run  and other commitments, so superfluous must go out the window.

This is not superfluous though. I need this too, all of you. I hope if I write here about this it won’t be too boring. I don’t think so though. I will be doing something awesome for myself and that’s what we all are doing here, right?  I know the support will be great.

I have Called and this is the Response. I listened, and I will continue to listen. Radical Acceptance. I don’t know what the future holds for me, I’m not looking that far ahead.

As I said, I have been busily planning some kind of trip for myself the last few months. And now I see that, instead, I am about to embark upon a Journey.

 

Namaste!