Training Climbs

"Man, if I was in better shape that wouldn't have been so hard. I should keep myself in better shape so this doesn't hurt so much." 

We've been having conference calls about the Samarya Yoga Teacher Training coming up in September. I'm getting excited to return to the Seattle area and see my friends in the Samarya community. I'm getting excited to teach as well as continue my own studying. I was thinking yesterday about the Samarya yoga trainings and how they have helped me so much as a yoga teacher but even more so as a person. Yoga as a practice helps us deal with our emotions, thoughts, and challenges. Yoga helps us cope and grow. As I train, study, and explore the various aspects of yoga in order to become a better yoga teacher I have also become a better friend, wife, and daughter.

I had lunch yesterday with a friend of mine who talked about being a positive person. She talked about making a choice to find the positive in life's challenges, making a choice to work hard and change something when she's not satisfied. She kept talking about the "choice" to to be happy and I couldn't help but think about how far I have come in realizing how manage my reactions and emotions. I remembered the old version of me that would have been defensive at her suggestion that we have a choice. I am not always a happy and positive person. I work at being happy and positive. I work at seeing the good in a situation. I practice it and practice it. We can't always control what happens to us, we can't control what other people say or do or how they treat us. See, my friend didn't say that we have a "choice" to have an "easy life." She said we have a choice as to how we deal with the life we have. I use to think that the happy and positive people were the ones that had the perfect lives. The more people I meet and the more I really talk to them about their own challenges, the more I learn that it's not what happens to us but how we handle it. Sadly, I'm not the first person that has said this.

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. -Epictetus

I think happiness quotes get a bad rap because they tell us it's our own fault if we aren't happy. My first reaction when I'm told that is to be defensive. It would be more helpful to be given information on how to react or how to get better at reacting. It feels like I'm already supposed to know how to react to something before I even know what that something is. I mean anyone who has had something really bad happen would tell you that you can never be prepared. And you can't. But Yoga helps us train. I notice that when I've been practicing yoga and something hits the fan, I am more prepared to deal with it. I still react emotionally but my recovery time has gotten better. The time it takes me to get back up after being knocked off the horse is faster. I think back to something my yoga teacher always said about practicing on little things so that we are ready for the big things. Now I get it.

It's like training climbs. We climb little mountains so that we are ready to climb the big ones. Climbing is never about one climb or one peak. You can't just wake up and decide you are ready. You have to be training and preparing. At least a little. Every time I come down from a big day I think, 

"Man, if I was in better shape that wouldn't have been so hard. I should keep myself in better shape so this doesn't hurt so much."