I knew I would love yoga, but I still didn't experience the joy in it. Something in me pushed ahead to keep searching.
At the time I was studying medical Qi Gong and Buddhism. I had already evolved quite a bit, this from growing up in a Christian family home to now being open to experiencing something vastly different and well, taboo according to the religion I was born into. I was curious, and I had many unanswered questions. I wanted to believe in something, so I believed deeply and in whatever was expected of me. It was the right thing to do at the time.
I was a track and field athlete, and long distance runner. I started as early as age six. I remember my dad would run with me and we would see such beautiful places. Places untouched and uncharted. Little did I know then how special of an experience that was. Surrounded by nature and living by the cycles of life. I felt deeply held by mother nature. It wasn't a thought, it was a knowing deep inside my bones.
As a teenager I moved fast like my mother. I didn't know how to slow down, and didn't understand why one should. Why not race through the day and be so productive that you win the race against all humans? This of course while losing the ultimate quest of each human to be present and alive in each moment. A knowing that escaped me while living in my head becoming a mini version of my mother.
Barely twenty and moving to Los Angeles, here I come! I needed to find something that was just mine in this new city. The towering presence of my boyfriend I moved out for, left me feeling small and, well, just not my usual self. Did I leave a part of myself behind moving across the big waters way West? Yoga kept calling me. It seemed like the perfect next step or add on from my newly discovered spiritual experiences.
And so one auspicious day I walked into Ish Moran's yoga class at Maha yoga, Brentwood around the year 2005. Hello to the beginning of the rest of my life.
Where has this amazing science been my whole life? I was obsessed. Ish had a way to make class just the right intensity where I felt physically challenged, and my mind at ease while belly laughs would erupt when falling out of half-moon pose. This was my first step towards finding calm through my body, dropping away from my circular fast mind, downwards. Just downwards, arriving little by little in my body, while started to feel the soil of this beautiful country I newly called home beneath my toes.
I so badly wanted to practice in sox, and still then had this strong urge to leave before savasana because well, my life was waiting. Why make life wait while I was wasting time by doing nothing. The times I would attempt to stay for Savasana I was restless like a fish out of the water. And my mind sounded like a telephone booth, crazier than before. If that was even possible. I didn't know then but it was my mind's desperate attempt at trying to regain a feeling of being in control.
Over the years I began to slow down. It took some effort on my behalf I would add. The payoff was huge. It came with copious amounts of freedom, energy, and a whole other perspective on life and being human.
The biggest gift we have is the present. And it is the only thing that is real. Life is made up of many moments and the more we choose to be alive in it, the more exceptional of a life we get to experience.
Since then I went on to study with Saul David Rey, Shiva Rea, Erich Schiffmann, Rod Stryker, Sonya Cottle, and Annie Carpenter with whom I mentored for over a year. And spend my later years frequenting Vinnie Marino's class over at Yoga Works.
It's been a journey of becoming, gaining everything in the nothing moments of life. Just like the pause after the exhale. Feel yourself drop into that void. Be empty. So you can birth something new with your next inhale. Breathwork, a magical topic for another time.
Fast forward to today, I spend most of my days rolling out my @yogahustle, yoga mat and allow myself to be led by Calvin Corzine, Brock Cahill and Tiffany Russo in beautiful California.
Home has found me right under my feet. A new hustle I love.