But I began to adjust to the rhythym, and now the trains are just a blur moving across the periphery of awareness.

My life has changed over the past year, significantly, and by the power of my intention. The challenges and choices have all occured in the present, under the control of my breath’s capacity. You can’t be overwhelmed when you’re just taking in a lungful of life, exhaling out the junk.

I haven’t taken time to assemble my thoughts into a blog post for months, and I don’t intend to encompass everything here. It’s overwhelming, as I realize where my self is now, with respect to these changes.

If I am the benign observer, I’m sitting on a train car, watching the ground with a fixed gaze. At first I was able to distinguish each frame of vision, each thought, individually. How new this is! What evolution from the last frame! But then I relaxed my gaze and stared beyond it. I let my vision blur and I honed on an unmoving place under the surface.

Now the ground is whizzing by, beautiful stokes of colour stream across my sightline. I want to mark this moment, some moment, this one or another. But now I wonder if by launching a nugget of experience off the train like baggage, it would be broken by momentum when it hits the ground.

Tangibly now. I’m incredibly blessed, and deeply thankful of each day. I am now co-owner of a yoga studio, Newport Yoga. It’s just minutes from my door. I have a new community of open hearted people that I relate to every day. The future of the studio is going to be co-authored by my pen. People who come to practice yoga are seekers.

My husband said to me tonight that he can’t remember the last time I was in a “mood”. It’s true, I’m consistently happy. A big step for me.

It’s not really the yoga. I love yoga – but that is only the language of my autobiography. What’s evolving in me (I say tentatively…) is confidence. I’ve struck myself down so many times, even when I’m achieving “goals” I counteract my gains with assault on my body and mind.

But when I walk into the studio, my anxiety ebbs. I work to culivate a group dynamic and personal experience for the participants in my classes. It’s outside of me. I think, at least lately, I’ve been beating my fear.

I had so many personal doubts when I decided to make yoga and the studio my focus. But I chose to ignore them. Something beneath the chiding words of my ego rose above them, and I listened too it. I’m still calling it “It”. When I’ve resolved that “it” is “me” then we’ll celebrate

Love yourself.

Karen

It wasn’t that one day I cleaned my ears with a Q-Tip and suddenly it was clear; the ingredients of change intermingled slowly. Giving up something that had been a part of me for almost a decade was not an easy decision.

Last summer, I decided to take action on some minor health issues that I had been apathetic towards for many years. I am 32 now, and feeling my mortality a little more closely. My doctor identified that the causes were not physical – instead, they were likely stress related. Her mandate was to treat the ends, not the means. This wasn’t an adequate solution for me, and so I looked outside of conventional medicine.

I started seeing a naturopath last November, but I have to admit, the course of naturopathic treatment didn’t suit me. I sustained it for five months, and in the end, the practitioner was as lost as how to help me. She had tried everything in her bag of tricks. But in one of my early visits, she recommend that I try yoga – a piece of advice that I acted on.

Enter Yoga

Establishing a yoga practice has created an undefinable space in me. It didn’t come right away, but with regular practice, it also didn’t take long. From the start to end of each class, I experienced a temporary transformation from chaotic to calm. At first it didn’t seem to be lasting far beyond the end of class. But the decision to continue to practice regularly meant that I was finding intention outside of class.

Somehow this practice has grounded life in me. That’s a pretty grand statement, but I think above all, it began to crack open my mind, and in the space created – a reservoir of new ideas, feelings and motivations pooled. I took a renewed interest piano (after 15 years), writing, sharing my recipes with others, I started this blog. I also have began to think of yoga a lifestyle over an intermittent practice.

Listening

Ironically, during this time, my stress response was becoming more acute. I had little idea of the cause or solution, and felt deeply frustrated that I was doing “everything right” to mitigate it. In an effort to further understand the stress, I identified the triggers of anxiety in my life, and observed my reaction them to them closely. I also started talking about stress. It had grown to a degree that I couldn’t just abide with it internally, I needed to start expressing it to people close to me. As soon as I put it into words, it was real, manifest, and could stand nothing short of a solution.

My now former job is truly remarkable – working remotely with the freedom to travel and work, great people, a small business energy that let you see your ideas turn into results in short measure. The exchange currency used to be simple: I gave a lot, and took back the satisfaction of a job well done. But in the past year, that hasn’t been enough. Beyond doing a job well, I’ve also realized that I want to do something that resonates more closely with my nature.

In the past, changing careers has been something I have discussed with my husband as if I was talking about someone else’s life. I’ve never let the idea penetrate the security shield protecting my sound existence. I would deflect the idea of “moving on” as something for the future, always a couple more years down the road. I didn’t shed light down an alternate path; I only saw darkness and unknown, and a direction of infinite fear.

Yoga helped me turn on the light.

Whatever I choose as my life’s pursuit, becomes my outlet for personal energy and creativity. I don’t like the word “work”, especially when used in contrast to “life” or “personal time”. I feel like I’ve sold myself short if I spend too much time doing something in a category defined by unwilling effort. Stress comes naturally when I engage in my life’s pursuit, and that is fine by me.

It’s remarkable how positive, energetic stress can degrade into destructive stress when the inner drive has shifted gear. But because I had all the parameters in place for an objectively ideal life; I had believed that my attitude was all that needed to change. I tried to continue to work as hard as I ever had, but at some point I passed empty and started running on fumes.

The Question

One night at dinner a close friend posed the idea “Why don’t you work part-time?” In the past I would have laughed at the idea; I believed my job simply couldn’t be done with part time effort. But the suggestion came surprisingly easy to me, I felt an immediate energy in even considering it. I brought up the idea with my former business partner. He himself had noticed that something was wrong, and was happy to accommodate this request on a short term basis.

What could the other half of my time might bring?

Nightly, between midnight and 6am, I’d lie awake considering what a part-time split between work and life could bring. But ultimately I did not want that distinct separation – I wanted to be pursuing something with full-time engagement. I was deeply restless, I don’t sit well in limbo without a firm decision in hand.

Understanding

One Saturday night during another contemplation session, I was sitting alone on my couch, computer on my lap, and I stumbled across an excerpt from “Soul Dance”, by Bill Plotkin

Harley Swift Deer, a Native American teacher, says that each of us has a survival dance and a sacred dance… Our survival dance, a foundational component of self-reliance, is what we do for a living—our way of supporting ourselves physically and economically… Once you have your survival dance established, you can wander, inwardly and outwardly, searching for clues to your sacred dance, the work you were born to do.
Read full excerpt

The feeling that came over me was best described as elated nausea. I heard myself so clearly. It was time to leave my survival dance behind, and set a new rhythm for myself. The dance actually became literal… I did a little jig in my living room.

Decision

I resigned five days later. The move was quick but I couldn’t deny my resolution. The hardest part of this process was recognizing that although I have undeniable fears, I can choose to accept and move beyond them. Everyone has fears. I started to look at people who I respect and realize that they too have fears; likely as many as me! But fears are only temporary if you act in spite of them. And soon there will be new ones to take their place, but their power will be lessened. Although they pass through your present life, they won’t calcify your spirit with apathy.

Don’t get too comfortable in the safe and secure default settings that limit your potential in life. For me, it took physical symptoms to alert me to a possible problem. Next I needed to create space to figure it out, and in that space, new passions started evolving. Once I listened, deciding on a solution and acting on it were much easier tasks.

Since my resignation I’ve been glowing. It’s a funny thing, strangers have been randomly greeting me while walking my dog. Apparently I’ve lost a subtle crease in my brow, and replaced it with a smile. It has not taken long for brilliant opportunities to arise from darkness, and I’ve begun to trust that as long as I choose a future that transcends fear and apathy, I will thrive.

Sunday morning power class is a notch above my weekday practice. I got squeezed and replenished in a few cycles through the class, turning over the leftover energy from yesterday and making room for clean morning fuel (aka a good breakfast). I ended up taking a late morning tap to round it off, and just woke up.

There were a couple of personal challenges evinced today. One that brought the glow of success, and the other, a realization that I have a bigger challenge to face.

We tried a pose that I had never done before, and I didn’t catch the name, but it involved moving from a standing balance pose to a modified crow out to high plank. Although I didn’t execute it perfectly, I feel with a few more attempts it will be singing (see resonance).

My second challenge came from acknowledging my present limits, deciding to stay on the safe side of that boundary, and then tackling the disappointment that stemmed from that decision. In a particularly challenging series of standing poses, I felt my knee tingle, like a sparkler had been set off inside. There was no pain, but I noticed the sensation and backed off. I couldn’t even attempt a modification with less intensity – it just wasn’t working out.

What came over me was disappointment – but the feeling wasn’t completely internal in its source and target. What arose above being disappointed in myself was the feeling that I had disappointed someone external to me (the instructor?). It sounds ridiculous, illogical, totally un-yoga… but that was what I felt. It’s a left over reaction from ballet, where I felt the teacher had invested in me, and “put” something in me and wasn’t “getting back”.

Photo by Uršula Berlo

So that’s got to go…. and that’s going to be a challenge because, well, I think today I realized that my practice is not completely seated from internal intention, and directed towards internal balance. There’s something like internal projection/reflection going on here. But it’s been acknowledged, so now I’ve got to do something about it. I have no ideas yet but I’ll ponder that in the next still moment.

Photo by: alfarman looking up

By day, I am a software developer, and I really enjoy it. I’m a problem solver, a systems-thinker, and I get to exercise this talent continuously. If I were to take a career aptitude test, I’m pretty sure that I’ve followed their recommendations to a tee. It fits my personality, my brain is wired this way.

But something in me is off kilter. Like so many others, I’ve learned that I’m prone to chronic stress. I spent my twenties living in it, sometimes feeding off it as a source of energy, motivation and self-control. But now in my thirties, it feels like a condition. The negative side effects are becoming more visible, or maybe I’m just more aware of them. My panic episodes stem from day to day events. The immediate physiological symptoms are hideously predictable to me. I sit in wonderment as my body reacts, preparing myself to run from a surprise prehistoric attack of a rival tribe.

But the equation doesn’t add up. I have a great life! I live in a beautiful place, I’m interested in my job, have an amazing life partner, I eat right, finances are in order, great friends, etc etc etc. How does that form a foundation for stress? I’ve been frustrated and baffled, at times questioning my sanity.

I’m starting an experiment because I have a theory.

Does inner peace stem from giving away something that you are passionate about?

My friend Sean has tried to convince me on a few occasions to start a website for women in technology (okay… he actually envisioned “Tech Babes”, a place to prove that women can be geeks and still be sexy, but I’ll forgive him for that). The problem is, I don’t have a voice inside me encouraging me to share my technical know-how. There are thousands of brilliant developers who keep blogs, sharing code, home-brewed applications, speaking at conferences, actively exchanging ideas. But that’s not me. I might take up the opportunity sometime, but I don’t feel driven to do it. It’s not part of my path, I feel very certain about it.

But here I am, thinking about Food and Yoga. These are two things for which I feel compelled to emit my thoughts, ideas, experiences and recipes. I feel like I want to “teach” others, starting from this platform. I don’t mean a unilateral dictation of my subjective self, but outwardly sharing a piece of my inner self, starting a conversation and and exchange. I want to give this away, and uptake energy and ideas from others.

Is occurred to me yesterday that this practice may have an effect on my stress. This wasn’t a flash of brilliance, rather I noticed that the feeling of stress hadn’t come over me that morning, and I wasn’t on holiday, and it wasn’t a weekend. Instead, I was thinking about Food and Yoga, and what I wanted to share on this site. Humans are social beings, we’ve evolved because of our ability to exchange of ideas. It’s in our nature to share with an intent greater than exchanging ideas for currency. Could it be that inner peace stems from giving away something that you are passionate about? I’m sure it’s not the entire solution – but to what degree could it contribute to lowering stress?

So if there’s any basis to my theory, the next question is: to what degree do you have to devote yourself to your passion? Does it need to be your career, your full-time pursuit? At this point, I don’t think so. I think that as long as you can incorporate it in a meaningful way, you’ve listened to yourself and you’re acting from the right place.

What do you have in you to teach? What knowledge would you give away? This doesn’t have to mean standing in front of a group, some people are not comfortable in the situation. But it could be a blog, a book, magazine articles – an outward stream of communication from yourself to others.

Does this resonate with you? Leave me your comments.

“Harley Swift Deer, a Native American teacher, says that each of us has a survival dance and a sacred dance, but the survival dance must come first. Our survival dance, a foundational component of self-reliance, is what we do for a living—our way of supporting ourselves physically and economically. For most people, this means a paid job. For members of a religious community like a monastery, it means social or spiritual labors that contribute to the community’s well-being. For others, it means creating a home and raising children, finding a patron for one’s art, or living as a hunter or gatherer. Everybody has to have a survival dance. Finding and creating one is our first task upon leaving our parents’ or guardians’ home.

Once you have your survival dance established, you can wander, inwardly and outwardly, searching for clues to your sacred dance, the work you were born to do. This work may have no relation to your job. Your sacred dance sparks your greatest fulfillment and extends your truest service to others. You know you’ve found it when there’s little else you’d rather be doing. Getting paid for it is superfluous. You would gladly pay others, if necessary, for the opportunity.

Hence, the importance of self-reliance, not merely the economic kind implied by a survival dance but also of the social, psychological, and spiritual kind. To find your sacred dance, after all, you will need to take significant risks. You might need to move against the grain of your family and friends. By honing psychological self-reliance, you will find it easier to keep focused on your goals in the face of resistance or incomprehension, initial failure or setbacks, or economic or organizational obstacles. And spiritual self-reliance will maintain your connection with the deepest truths and what you’ve learned about how the world works.

Swift Deer says that once you discover your sacred dance and learn effective ways of embodying it, the world will support you in doing just that.

What your soul wants is what the world also wants (and needs). Your human community will say yes to your soul work and will, in effect, pay you to do it. Gradually, your sacred dance becomes what you do and your former survival dance is no longer need. Now you have only one dance as the world supports you to do what is most fulfilling for you. How do you get there? The first step is creating a foundation of self-reliance: a survival dance of integrity that allows you to be in the world in a good way—a way that is psychologically sustaining, economically adequate, socially responsible, and environmentally sound. Cultivating right livelihood, as the Buddhist call it, is essential training and foundation for your soul work; it’s not a step that can be skipped.”