Tag Archives: confidence

How To Make Your Dream A Reality- How I Became A Yoga Teacher

My dream finally came true last year!  I became a yoga teacher.  It took over two decades and very nearly stayed a dream forever.

I was not much of an athlete growing up. Other than running very fast for very short distances, I was rubbish at sports.  I was always the last kid left when teams were picked in gym class.  And I had two left feet on the dance floor. Despite what I thought was an obvious lack of coordination, I’ve always been drawn to yoga.  So, in 2001, I began to learn this beautiful ancient practice, first starting with VHS tapes then working my way up to live classes.  I loved it and I could do it… and I loved that I could do it!  I also loved that the benefits of yoga went way  beyond just physical exercise.  Yoga is deeply healing and slowly wounds that I carried inside for years began to get better.

I knew I wanted to teach yoga but I figured that if it was meant to be that I would be invited to enroll into a Yoga Teacher Training program.  I longed for one of my teachers to say, “Cynthia, have you thought about teaching yoga?  You really should consider it.” That never happened.  I just figured I wasn’t charismatic enough.  I didn’t have what it takes.  

20+ years went by.  I continued to practice yoga while working at jobs that left me miserable,  frustrated and unsure of what my real purpose in life was.  Then one day  while I was at a yoga class, lying on my belly in Cobra Pose, awaiting the teacher’s next cue, I thought, “I want to do this!  Why can’t I teach?  I can do this!  I am going to do this!”  The very next day I enrolled in a Yoga Teacher Training Program before I could talk myself out of it.  I still didn’t know if I had what it took but I was determined to find out!

Throughout the training, I continued to doubt myself.  When it was my turn to teach a posture, I would sometimes freeze and my mind would go blank even though I practiced the pose hundreds of times before. I found myself wishing the floor would open and swallow me whole.  My anxiety got so bad three quarters of the way through the training that I emailed one of my favorite teachers and explained that I was struggling.  I knew I would I would finish the program but I feared I still wouldn’t be hire-able as teacher.  She wrote me back quickly that she knew I was going to be a great yoga teacher and asked me to teach a portion of her own class that weekend.  When someone you respect believes in you, it can make it easier to start believing in yourself.  Within two days, I went from being convinced that I didn’t have what it takes to be a yoga teacher to teaching a class with 50 people in it.  

That was the turning point for me.  I knew after that, I could do it and I haven’t looked back since.  I graduated from the program and have since earned additional certifications. I now teach multiple classes. I love holding space for  people while they learn how to build their practice. And I love seeing them experience yoga’s benefits for the body, mind and spirit.  

What’s your dream?  Are you waiting for someone else’s blessing before you act on it?  I got that backwards for a very long time.  You need to take action first then the blessings will follow.  Namaste!

Naturally Cranky: Almost there… Why Don’t I Feel Like It?

I am coming into the home stretch of my August Adventure Blogging Challenge.  Challenged is how I feel at the moment…part of me would like to stop now.  I’m at the point where if Burgess Meredith were my coach, he would be giving me a pep talk about having heart.

The odd part is that I don’t have writer’s block exactly.  I still have a bunch of ideas jotted down.  I just find myself staring at them and not knowing exactly how I want to frame them in a post.  Every time an idea starts to take shape, a big cranky baby inside me slaps it down with a big, “NO!”  Then I start to think about other things I want to do like make jewelry, practice yoga or go walk on the beach.  Then I start to question,”Why did I publicly committ myself to this challenge again?”

“Why is this happening when I am so close,” I ask myself.  I think it is the other side of resistance, the dark side.  I mentioned last week in Naturally Balanced: Half-way Check-in and Knowing When to Take Five that feeling resistant can be fatigue or a sign that something is wrong but I don’t think that is what is going on here.  I wrote in Naturally Determined: So Long Procrastination! that while I work hard at not letting other people down, I have often fallen short on meeting personal goals and keeping promises to myself.  What I have going on here is one bad habit!

Gay Hendricks wrote in The Big Leap (Highly recommend it, by the way)  about how we all have an upper limit that we have unconsciously set for ourselves. We are like a dog who is used to being chained.  Even when we’re no longer tethered, we will not go beyond the area that the chain once imposed on us.  When we butt up again this self-imposed limitation, many of us will fall back instead of jumping up to the next level.  It’s a mentality that keeps us stuck in our comfort zone.  Oddly, many of us do not even find our comfort zones all that comfortable but the comfort is in the known versus the unknown.  The devil you know…

I don’t know what’s going to happen after I complete this challenge.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe something great.  Maybe something in-between.  However, I do know, if nothing else, I will complete it!

Many blessings to all,

Cynthia

 

Please follow me on Twitter.  Also, please LIKE my Facebook Page.

justdragonfly