MAHALO & ALOHA

I went to South Portland this week to visit one of my teacher training peeps.  The plan was to do some yoga in the park and then go eat lunch.  Her kids caught wind of our adventure and flew through her house and into her garage.  They were so excited my friend could barely get pants and shoes on them.  Off they went, down the street, they knew the way.  We stopped on the way at their local community garden.  A Hawaiian neighbor oversees the most of it.  Mahalo, I said to her.  That’s thank you, said my friend.  We all laughed at my (big surprise!) awkwardness.  There was a mishap at the park, her daughter will be grateful I don’t go into detail when she reads this when she’s twenty, if this little blog is still around.  The look on my friend’s face was priceless.  It was:  I just want to do yoga!  A solution was reached, the kid’s dad came to get them.  A neighbor came out to join us.  We did yoga.  I taught and then my friend taught.  We are both nailing down our sequences.  I seem to have left the land of being overly self conscious about my teaching, I just teach.  I mess up, I keep going.  Who knew tucking toes, and sole of the foot was so hard to recall?  I keep repeating, sole of the foot, and tuck your toes, over and over in my mind.  Ah, the mind of a yoga teacher.  Yup, that’s me.  Anyways, we were at the park too long and didn’t make lunch.  Next time.

I turned in the last of my homework.  Necessary to get my certificate, but sad.  This is my work station, littered with books from my book reports:

I received word back from parks and rec in Wilsonville that I can offer free classes in the park, for free.  I don’t have to pay any type of fee.  I contacted the local farmers market, my idea is to offer the class right before the market to increase awareness.  Maybe after it catches on, I can switch to a Saturday morning (11am) class so more people can attend.  All of this is contingent on when I receive my certification as well.  I even created a little logo, see below.  I know if this actually happens I will be S O  N E R V O U S.  But I am willing to face my fear.  I would like to just do this through the summer.  Obviously since I’m in Oregon, I can’t offer free outdoor yoga year round.  I’ve done all of the footwork I can do.  Now I’m just waiting, which I’m not good at.  Waiting is my only option.  The first farmers market is June 11th.

I had a friend last night say to me, don’t wait to teach.  Teach now.  I told her how I may be teaching by 6/11 and she said that’s too far away!  She sent me a gym contact she has and offered to talk to the owner of the studio she works at.  Teaching in an actual yoga studio scares me so much.  She said the word, audition.  Man that word freaks me out.  I imagine myself throwing up right before my audition.  Eek.  So we’ll see where all of this goes.

So what remains to be seen:  will I get a different job, job?  Will I teach yoga?  Where and how will I teach yoga?  What is in the future for H, my family, and I?  I’ve been meditating/practicing pretty regularly.  I use my mala beads I received from training.  Namaha Lakshmi, abundance.  Not just monetary abundance, but abundance of courage.  Abundance of that Higher Power.  That’s my mantra right now, that the higher power is bigger than me.  That it can fill in all of my weaknesses.

Namaha Lakshmi,

Aloha, Mahalo,

& Namaste.