I have now officially taught two yoga classes! It’s something I put off doing for years, while in the thick of mothering young children. During those days my free time was spent in places where babies in tow and toddlers on hips were welcome.
I am in the middle of a nine-month-long, 200-hour yoga certification program. Before I had kids I knew I wanted to teach yoga – some day. I was living in Atlanta and studying at a Stillwater Yoga Studio, under the Southeast’s highest certified Iyengar teacher. I was pregnant and dreaming of doing yoga in India one day.
Then I had a baby, and another and another. None of them took bottles and I never left any them long enough to do any big weekend training courses, much less just a class during some of those phases.
When the girls went back to school in August it hit me – I needed a project for myself. I took a leap of faith and signed up for this intense training program. It was foreign to me to commit to something that was so much time just for me, including 12 weekends where I spend 15 hours doing yoga – all by myself!
It’s been amazing. Our teacher is also a certified Iyengar instructor, familiar with where I got my yoga start 13 years ago.
It’s been a journey for myself like none other.
And I’m teaching yoga!
There’s a part of me that always needed to give back to others. That’s why became a writer, that’s why I joined Americore after September 11th, and that’s why I served on the board of directors at a birth center for five years.
Now the back of my van is a traveling yoga studio, loaded with mats, blocks, straps, music, homemade mat cleaner and even my oil diffuser.
It’s where I’m at right now. It’s a good place. It’s a journey of the heart, that I hope to share more with others through practice on the mat and by living my days with more peace, mindfulness and presence. Because all those things help us see the joy in our days. And we can all use more joy while navigating the hectic days parenting.
For me, I find it on my yoga mat. One breathe at a time.
Then when I open the girls’ laundry chute for the first time in two weeks, I am able to laugh at myself for forgetting. Then I think of constructive ways I can get the girls to help next time. And a new idea for a post I can share with you is born (look for it next week)!
I am very thankful, for my amazing husband who takes care the girls on these weekends, juggling birthday parties, sleepovers, putting laundry away and even taking the girls of town – sometimes to my family, without me! He is the best partner. And he is now learning to do yoga.
I’m also thankful for my friend who offered to arrange a lunch hour class at her work building so I can have a place to teach yoga. I knew I just needed to take the leap. And it felt good to do it.
