We are worthy

These days when we step outside everything is changing before our eyes. Doesn't it seem like we get a ton of rain one day and then overnight we wake up to grass and flowers and everything blooming? My life has felt this energy of change lately, too. It becomes harder for me to keep up with this blog and my periods of reflection because so much is happening around me that I am a part of. Perhaps you feel this too. The sluggishness of winter is falling away, and the upbeat excitability of Spring is here. More people want to get together, more people want to make things HAPPEN. It's a great feeling. Yet it can also be fearful as well, because we are encouraged to come out of our shells, our hibernation, and many of us are more comfortable out of the mix, rather than right in it.

Just last week I came home after a long day to find a voicemail and email and Facebook messages saying "Did you see? You're in Yoga Journal!" I had no idea what anyone was talking about. I discovered through friends that I was in this month's Yoga Journal on page 24, assisting the ladies of Hello House, a substance abuse treatment center I used to teach at for yogaHOPE, www.yogahope.org, a non-profit I also worked for. YogaHOPE and Sue Jones are a huge part of where I am today. When I was on the brink of change, in the Fall of 2007, wanting to teach full time but fearful if I could do it, Sue Jones and yogaHOPE showed me the way by hiring me as their part time Volunteer Coordinator - after I took the leap and quit my full time job! I had been teaching for yogaHOPE for some time then and considered it part of my giving back what yoga had brought me, to women who weren't likely to receive it, but could so benefit from yoga. I gave up my teaching position and part time position at YH about a year ago so I could make more space to grow my teaching and practice.

After hearing about this photo in YJ, (I still haven't seen it!) I contacted Sue and asked her about it. She said "Hey, maybe it's time for you to come back? Our new Trauma Informed Mind Body Programming is incredible!" And wouldn't you know it, she had a meeting that week about this programming on a night I could attend, for current and old teachers. I went and heard all about this programming we had dreamed about that was now in place and being implemented in a pilot facility. I was all excited to see how this year had shaped yogaHOPE, and reflected on how this year had shaped me as well. When I left yogaHOPE, I had been asked to teach at South Boston Yoga, my yoga community but certainly not a place I expected to teach at, because these were all my "gurus" so to speak. I was fearful of standing amongst my gurus, and was not sure I was worthy. And here I am a year later, part of the amazing teaching community there, and my teaching and personal practice has grown leaps and bounds as a result. How wonderful to see the same changes for yogaHOPE!

To place the icing on the cake to speak, Sue texts me the next day after this meeting to let me know that one of the teachers for yogaHOPE's main fundraiser, Saluting the Spirit, cannot make it and would I teach on that day. This fundraiser has been one of the biggest yoga fundraisers in Boston for a few years now. The lineup of teachers from the Boston area is incredible. And here Sue is, asking me, if I would join! I of course said yes, but not without fear. Who am I, to be considered, a voice says. Again, to be a part of something with the people I look up to and supporting a cause that is dear to me for what it brings to the community, and for how it has shaped my life - the emotions are almost too much to try and describe. Yet it's these emotions, these experiences that make me worthy.

So here I am, standing amongst the clouds so to speak, and still feeling my feet on the ground. What I take from all of this is that change is happening to all of us all the time. It's when we fear the most, that change is truly upon us. Every time something big has happened in my life it's because I've been willing to go there - to go to that place where the critical voice inside my head says who am I, this is not possible. Yet something believes. Something says I AM. Something says YES. In many ways it's a piece of God, of the Divine - that knows purpose and possibility. It is yours just as much as it is mine. We are worthy.