Reflectiosn from the Sky

Reflections from the Sky

Reflectiosn from the SkyAs the brilliant orange glow illumines the horizon, I am flying home again. Another Yoga Teacher Training complete, another bittersweet end and another opportunity to grow authentically as a person, a mother, a friend, a teacher. I’m not sure how but every graduating YTT class just shatters my heart, it is hard to breath as I call their name to come up for their certificate. Is it because it is the end of our time together or something else? I really don’t know but I do know that after completing my 7th 200 hour teacher training it happens every time.

As the plane gently bumps along the turbulence I feel unsettled this morning. This could also be guilt for leaving my 21 month old to go to work or that my work for now has ended and I have to put it out to the ethers that I want that work to continue and then who knows which people will decided spending 200 hours studying yoga is what they want to do, and with me nonetheless.

All I know for certain is that my heart feels full, yet empty, open but closed, I feel happy and sad all at once and know that in the next few days I will get very quiet, process all this stuff bubbling up from my soul to the surface and go straight back to my role as a nursing Mama, chef, janitor, snow-shoveller, yoga teacher, friend and wife and that also makes me very happy.

So much of what I do is actually art, yoga is art and at times I loose site of that, sticking to my agenda’s, marking homework, booking travel tickets. When I started teaching these trainings I had to create all of the curriculum which felt like both creative work and also not creative work but just work-work. Each time I have seen how my offerings land with yoga students and then I must respond creatively to what I see. There is great danger in thinking you have arrived and no longer need to do the work, creative or not.

My fiery, pitta dosha, collides with my airy creative, vata dosha and a burning desire to be better, to do better in every part of my life engulfs me like a forest fire in a windstorm. Old ways are burned to ash and create the grounds just right for new creative ideas to sprout. If I don’t go with it I get so burned out and stuck. I never would have thought of myself of an artist but in the work I am doing more and more I see that I truly am that first.

Now I shift to accounting and create receipts, pay bills, return emails of curious yogis, change diapers, book essential oil classes and it starts to feel less like art and instead like I’m just going through the motions of life and responsibility. I know it’s more than that because I am always creating even when I doing less artsy things. Self care, being a better person, mom, wife, friend are constantly swirling around in my mind all day, often with only a short break during meditation and then boom right back to it how do I balance all these things and keep being authentic and creative? Must be the yoga, I often chalk things up to the magic and awesomeness of yoga.

I’m an artist, yep, I like that, I like the way I feel when I acknowledge that part of who I am, one that I don’t think I have ever acknowledged before because of course my mind has convinced me that I am never good enough to be that or anything else. Well… I’ve finally figured out that consulting my mind first for so many things is a mistake I have trained myself to start to listen to my heart first, what a joy that is since my heart talks much sweeter and kinder to me than my mind every does.

So now my work is done, I have set dates, put up posters, let people know that I will be coming back in March to begin the teacher training journey all over again and wonder who will come, what will transpire, who will I get to know through that process that I will forever feel a deep heart bond with. Wow, my life is good, like really good. I think about the accountant in the seat in front of me and the retired man going to visit his sick 92 year old father and recognize how different my life is and how grateful I feel to have made my own career out of what feels like a deep calling or a deep knowing about my purpose and dharma in my lifetime.

I thought I was going to sleep on this flight since I had to get up at 4:30 and went to bed at midnight but I felt the idea to write some of this out and share some these intense feelings, I will thank Elizabeth Gilbert for that since her Big Magic book seemed to be resonating at a deep heart level for me. Having said that she says that creative ideas are moving through the universe just looking for the right host to be expressed. I am happy to be that vessel this morning.

Love,
Mindy

About Mindy

Mindy Willis-Menard is an international yoga teacher who's love of yoga, nature, adventurer and life inspire her to teach. A true adventurer of the heart Mindy is also a hooper, rock climber, snowboarder, runner, foodie and cyclist. Mindy teaches classes, workshops and retreats world-wide. Every other moment she spends with her husband and dog, Mrs. Betty Rox.

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