1. There was no update on our progress in the Airforce application process. They've gotten back and few times and it just seems as though they are asking for the same thing. In my opinion they're stalling or buying themselves time. Maybe there is an influx of recruits, maybe policies are changing and they need to hold off on recruiting too many people. Whatever the real reason is we are still waiting. From a spiritual standpoint our time in the Airforce is being set up in just the right way and we are needing to wait for that moment. In the meantime we are needed here to continue to prepare and strengthen our family for this big change as well and be here for others. I guess I'll just keep adding little updates to my posts because I can't keep my blog on pause waiting for a good story and I can't keep creating more parts to this Freedom & Bravery Post.
2. My computer battery was fried thanks to me constantly leaving it plugged in. I never fixed it and I haven't gotten into a habit of working on another computer. Weird how habits can be broken over such a small thing such as using a different computer.
3. Holidays. Need I say more? I pretty much become useless to anything not holiday related come October.
4. I started a YTT-200 (Yoga Teacher Training) at the end of October which consumed a lot of my time, concentration, and energy. I had a lot of learning and spiritual opening and deepening to do which actually leads me into the topic for this part 3 post!
"Bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is feeling the fear, the doubt, the insecurity, and deciding that something else is more important."- Marl Manson
I took my first yoga class in 2014 during a semester of community college. My focus was more on my body. I wanted to feel strong and healthy. As a part of our class credit we were required to write a yoga memoir of sorts. This is what I wrote back then (edited from the original to fit the context of this post):
"My first dip into yoga was through youtube videos and pictured instructions from health websites. From the little I knew about yoga I knew there were supposed different "types"...[the] one that caught my attention: Yoga to ease stress so that you can become pregnant. My husband and I had been trying... But I was too stressed. I tried to follow the pictures and videos but like all my exercise regimens at home: I am really good at doing it for a couple weeks and then I stop. I needed some constant motivation. I needed a class.
Once it got closer to signing up for [college] classes I began to feel like I needed this yoga class more than even I could understand. I had a strong desire to go to this class so that I could be more healthy and less stressed so that I could get pregnant but as I continued forward it became less about my destination and more about the journey to a destination that someone higher had planned for me.
For my first yoga class I was excited but I was also stressed. I was running late! I drove with hands gripped on the wheel, muttering to myself, all the way to the college campus. Before we had even really started the yoga sequences the stress began to melt off. There were no shoes allowed in the dance studio and I could feel the cold floor beneath my feet. I sat in the circle of other students there. Emily, our instructor, had us each take turns around the circle to say why we had decided to take a yoga course. At the time I didn't want to admit to everyone that it was so that I could get pregnant. On my drive home I suddenly began to cry and laugh at the same time. I didn't know why I was crying, and so I laughed about it because I felt that good. I reflected on how I took my time to roll up my mat because I didn't want to instantly go back into rushing somewhere. I wanted to take it all in and not let go of how it felt to be at peace.
That peace continued on even into my work day with the cute little 1 year olds I take care of at the day care I work for. I was more patient with them. I was more relaxed. They could feel it and they responded to it. Later on through the course I learned that [there are] certain positions that are used to release toxins both spiritual and physical ones. The toxins are continually releasing even after you are done with exercising.
Emily explained that because we are constantly releasing these toxins we may find ourselves crying or suddenly angry even a few days after class. It was at that moment that I realized why I had been crying after the first day of yoga. As I began to fully immerse myself into the yoga practices and "join together" my spirit and mind, I got closer to God in a whole new way. I realized it wasn't about what I wanted right now but what I needed. I realized it's okay to let things go and that I should because it's unhealthy to keep all that spiritual waste inside. Most of all, I realized that it's okay to be just me because I have a special purpose in life. That may not be to bare children right now, and I'm okay with that. I have other important things to be a part of. I'm so glad that I had the instructor that I did to lead me through this yoga journey. She is an excellent teacher. I keep telling everyone that I've taken her education courses for teachers and now yoga and if she were to teach anything else I would take that class too. Yoga has become one of my favorite courses I have ever had and I will always be grateful for what it has taught me."
Shortly after I had written this memoir -in that April of 2014- I found out I was pregnant with out first baby. I had learned, in a small way, what it felt like to let life take its course and how to be in the present moment. I had wanted to do baby yoga but the mentality I held around my morning sickness was that I couldn't do anything--I felt to ill, so I stopped. I may have done a few You Tube videos here and there after he was born but I didn't feel that healing need so I essentially abandoned it.
Two years after this memoir was written I got pregnant with our second baby during a chaotic time. Our rental contract was up on the house and we didn't want to renew, we moved into my families home that they were currently trying to sell, Dax was gone during work trainings so it was me and my morning sickness and a not yet 2 year old. After about 4 months we found a home to buy in another town and moved in with Dax's sister and her husband for a month, that was November of 2016. Dax had to get a new job where he worked night shifts at a Cox call center, we worked on house paperwork and hoped to be in our home before Christmas, I still had some nausea, and my anxiety bubbled beneath it all.
We were able to move into our first home December 1st 2016 and three months later and 3 weeks earlier than her due date my daughter was born. Those first few days I encountered my first real panic attacks. Those first few months after she was born I came to a realization that I had anxiety and always had but had coped with it well enough. I was angry a lot, I doubted my beliefs, and I questioned my purpose. All of this sent me on a journey to find myself, to be open to learning, and to starting this blog.
Over the next couple of years I worked on myself, I struggled, and I got stronger. In the summer of 2019 right after we had decided to sell our home and go back into apartment living to make it easier for our Air force journey I decided to pursue Yoga again. This time from a spiritual focus with a determination and force to REALLY incorporate it in my life. I was going to take a YTT-200 course.
I did my research and once I found the path I felt most drawn too I doubted it. Fear kicked in strong. I researched as much as I could about the course I was about to take (most of which kind of went over my head), I wrote down the benefits Brett listed on her site, and I even wrote down my reasons for doing it (July 2019 Journal entry):
- Myself. I feel like this is my biggest "why". I feel like if I practice and understand it more it can become a ritual of health that I can incorporate into everyday. To deepen my personal practice.
- It's a career/degree that can be completed in 17 weeks (about 3 months) at 3 times a week, for a total of 8-10 hours/week (I ended up doing about 15 hours/week and still didn't complete EVERYTHING).
- I can teach anywhere (in my journal entry I actually listed a few places of interest)
- Eventually I'd like to be trained in the Trauma Recovery Yoga and help with anxiety.
After this journal entry I felt the strong urge to just go for it. So, I mustered up my bravery, paid in full, in advance, and then sought out the required reading and began to read. Within the first chapter of "A Path with Heart," by Jack Kornfield I knew with every part of me that I was on the right path, little did I know how bumpy of a path it would actually be!
Within the first couple of weeks we were given a journal prompt,“what does asana mean to you”.
My response (November 2019 Journal Entry):
"Balance and strength- both inner and outer. I feel like with all the energetic and spiritual work that is to be done to lead to a successful and happy life there also needs to be the physical representation-- the asana. By practicing this flow and the breath I am putting any built up energy where it needs to go--constructively. I feel often times that when I work on my internal needs, it can become unbalanced if not checked in with it's physical partner. My introverted tendencies create this imbalance often. I work in my head until I become enraged, anxious, untamed, and then mentally exhausted. Even "positive" emotions can be built up: excitement, attachment, curiosity, etc. Unchecked by physical counterparts leaves me feeling "off" or "confused".
By doing Asana I feel my life can be balanced between the tapah (focus) and the ishuara pranidhana (surrender) as well as the sthira (structure) and the sukham (sweetness) and I can find my own strength both inwardly and exclaimed outwardly in a dance or in helping another to find this precious and present space."
I want to strive for the presence of the now. To flow between the bliss and the challenge as an observer versus the passenger. I want my happiness to be independent from situations. I wanted to be aware and flexible. Theres a flexibility to be found in each pose (following excerpt taken from my Yoga Instagram Account):
•Physically flexibility requires the balance of sthira(strength) and sukham(stretch). Often times we may feel the need to have too much sukham through pushing ourselves past physical limits due to pressures or the need to impress. This can cause complications in the body’s structure. When we first strengthen the muscles and then stretch we obtain that balance.
• Mental flexibility can come in handy when dealing with asana. Allowing yourself to be present, allowing the asana to adapt to you, eliminating poses or growing comfortable with modifications of poses even if they don’t look worthy to post on Instagram 
. I feel it! I feel the pressure to preform verses listening to my body and what it’s telling me it needs to do.
Connecting the mind and movement, getting out of overthinking and into doing, listening, observing, and accomplishing- This is what asana means to me.
For at least half of the teacher training I struggled between what felt right to me and what I felt like I should do, I had painful moments in time and experiences resurface, my insecurities came out, my doubt leveled joy. And then I just went for it- I went for all of it. Like the quote I posted above I felt the fear, the doubt, the insecurity and with the support, guidance, material, and tools I was receiving from my class I conquered most of it and my anxious voice softened to just a voice in the back of my head.
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to keep moving forward in the dark when you feel like theres nothing to move forward to. It's there that I uncovered my tendencies, created plans to move forward, became more compassionate, connected to others, sought out deeper understanding, and found more beauty in the world. It was there my creativity was sparked again and my purpose surfaced.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
Until next time!
XOXO
