I leave this morning for a week-long Yoga training in the mountains of Colorado with my teacher. When I tell people this most often I hear, “Oh, that will be fun.” And I mildly cringe inside because it’s never been what I’d describe as fun. These trainings are similar to willingly sitting in a fire and making yourself stay regardless of how hot and uncomfortable it gets. Sound like fun?
So why go? Because I have too. Not because someone is forcing me to but because I am listening to my heart’s calling. The same calling that beckoned me to walk onto the path of self-discovery a long time ago. What I did not understand then, was that when I chose to take those first steps I would never reach a particular destination, or ever stop walking. It is an ongoing journey where I hover on plateaus, dip into dark valleys and rise to peaks with a whole new perspective. But it never ends.
No one who’d walked before me bothered to tell me I wouldn’t be able to stop. Pause and take rest, yes, but not stop because the feeling of stagnation is far more frightening and uncomfortable than anything yet to be revealed or discovered.
What magnetically pulls me forward is a deep abiding desire to feel what is best described by Elizabeth Gilbert, I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water. Now, I am not going to explain what God means to me. Over years of reflection and practice, I have redefined my definition and even the names of God many times until resting on what feels right in my heart. Regardless of name or definition, the feeling of something indescribably beautiful, infinitely wise and peaceful flowing through my veins is what the path of Yoga offers.
But in order to experience it, one must step into the fire. I have come to learn through experience that the fire doesn’t destroy me, but transforms me a little bit at a time. And as a dear mentor once shared, it takes as many times as it takes, to sit in the fire, on my meditation cushion, or practice in the mountains of Colorado, in order to embody my Highest Potential, to live and thrive from my own divine nature. And who knows, maybe this time around I will have a little fun as I dance in the fires of transformation.
