Part of my intensive initial and ongoing training as a yoga teacher was a great deal of self-exploration. I can’t say I always agreed with the techniques used but I do believe that collectively, they shaped my yoga teaching in a positive way because through them I learned quite a bit about myself. Knowing myself better has helped me be more open as a teacher and more comfortable working and sharing with others.

One of the things we used to do is identify where we were as individuals in terms of our ‘current state’ ….mainly, so we could identify the feeling and name it. I do believe that so many of us pass by opportunities to do that, and instead cover up our feelings in other ineffective, unhealthy ways and it leads to deeper problems. Being in touch with how you feel in any particular moment is healthy and when you start to do this, you start to also see how transient feelings can be– which, when you are feeling like crap, gives you faith that this too shall pass.

I won’t go into how I am feeling at this particular moment and why, but let’s just say the warmth and love in my heart last night (see post) has been replaced with something more on the flip side of those feelings. Yes, things happen that are out of your control; yes, things will pass and everything happens for a reason, and if things weren’t meant to be they won’t be, and the universe is sending you a message, and on and on I could go with the sayings that one hears when they’ve hit a rough patch, but ultimately, you feel what you feel and sometimes those feelings are things like sadness and anger and loss and hurt and things like that and all the sayings in the world won’t really change how you feel.

So, this was the energy that fueled my run tonight. I wasn’t supposed to run; and my leg was telling me that as I pounded through it. So, as I type this, I have my leg in the lobster pot (see prior post re: lobster pot) and I will force myself to take the next two days off and do nothing or go swim. But as I ran tonight, I thought of the Dr. Suess movie about The Grinch. In the Grinch, he steals all the presents, food and decorations of the Who’s in Whoville, but yet, the next morning, Christmas morning, he still hears their joyous singing. He is confounded as to how they could still be so joyous and going on with their Christmas morning routine when he expected them to be home sulking. So, as I ran tonight and in my heart there was a heaviness, I took solace in the fact that I was sticking to my routine and showing my body and my heart that this too shall pass. I was acting to show the universe that I honor myself and my overall goal to run this marathon and even though there was a bump in the road, I wasn’t going to let it get me down.

That is all for tonight.

Rest well.