day 8 – exactly where I need to be

My first yoga class (outside of a gym) was in 2005 at the Omega Institute while on a life-altering mommy-daughter trip with my momma and our good friends Bari and Ali (DogtailsShop.com).  My mom had started practicing yoga about a year prior and had been trying to convince me to attend with her.  During our break from the amazing workshop we were attending with THE Dan Millman, we headed off to take a class together.  My mom had been practicing vinyasa flow, but thought Kundalini sounded interesting.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  I sat between my mom and an older man.  The teacher began chanting in a language I did not understand and made no attempt at explaining a thing.  We were instructed to moan - it sounded like a very disturbing orgy in the room had erupted.  Then we came to lie down on our stomachs where we were told to hump the ground, while doing the moaning. The older man next to me proceeded to fart throughout the entire class.  It smelled horrible!  Yet, somehow we stuck it out and made it to the end of the class.  I swore I would never take another yoga class again.  It took some convincing before I did, and when I did, it was definitely NOT a Kundalini class.   That shit is weird! Oh no, never again!  That is…until tonight.

As I have continued on this yoga journey, I have experienced many different types of classes, teachers, thoughts, ideas, beliefs.  I have tried all different sorts of practices, often with a very closed mind.  I figured out what I liked and everything else was “weird”.  Hmm, wonder where that stems from :)  As I near 30, that is beginning to change.  I am practicing what I preach – just because you like it, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.  Just because you don’t, doesn’t mean it’s bad.  And just because something sucks the first time, doesn’t mean it will the second time (if that were true, not many people would be having sex:P).  I am opening myself up to possibility.

I’ve been told over and over since moving to LA over 4 years ago that I have to try Golden Bridge - that it will change my mind about Kundalini.  The closest I’d gotten before tonight was eating at the café (nitemoon.com), which was scrumptious, check it out!  Tonight a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go to a class with her, I figured what the hell, it can’t be anywhere close to as bad as the first one.  And let me tell you it was NOT, it was the opposite!  It was super fucking dope.  The message was extremely relatable; in fact it was exactly what I needed to hear.  It went a little something like this:  You can’t get anywhere without recognizing where you’re at, and where you’re at is exactly where you need to be, because it is where you are.

I am right where I need to be!
In this moment, I am right where I need to be.

I could just repeat that over and over.  Such a good reminder after spending a lot of time recently future tripping and attaching to outcomes, rather than focusing on the task at hand.  Then on top of that the instructor (Suze Q – she rocks!) pulled an Archangel card that read: Keep an open mind, and learn new ideas. Then teach these ideas to others. Learning and teaching are linked in a perfect cycle, in which information comes to you when you need it. Doesn’t get more serendipitous than that folks!  And to top it all off, through all the "weird" breathing and moving and what not, my body felt like it was on ecstasy.  Haven’t felt that feeling in years…12 to be exact.  Now I get to experience it for a whole lot less money, in a whole lot healthier way.  Win!

In the end, I don’t know whether it was the change in the Kundalini class, or my willingness that made this experience so much different than the last.  But I do know that as I enter into my 30s I am going to try those things that I turned my nose up to in the past.  Who knows, they might just bring me ecstasy :)