YOGA, PARTY OF ONE

I’ve done lots of things alone in life.  Most haven’t bothered me, like I have seldom thought, having someone with me would make this so much better.  I’ve been single for years.  I’ve lived alone and enjoyed it.  I’ve gone to my fair share of movies alone.  I’ve sat at plenty of meetings alone, apart from different cliques (yes, there are even cliques in AA!), on the outside looking in, and kind of liking it most of the time.  I’m a loner and I isolate by nature so you could say this comes easy to me.  Well, folks if I know one thing yoga teaching wise, teaching all by yourself doesn’t work!  You need people in order to teach.  Double duh, right?  (And please read the end of this post to see what I really believe about being alone).

The last three weeks I have been flying solo at my recent yoga gigs.  Sadly, the studio in Milwaukie (east from Portland, OR) closed.  The same week it closed I got a new yoga gig at a swimming center that has a yoga studio about 20 minutes south of Wilsonville.  Great timing and totally my Higher Power I know, but my first three classes were empty.  After researching this strange phenomenon (being sarcastic there) I learned that it’s pretty common for a new yoga teacher with new yoga classes to have slim to none attendance.

Strangely enough I do believe I have made progress on not having the sing-songy voice while teaching.  I started building my sequences around a theme, more alignment oriented than philosophical.  When I speak from the place of the theme the sing-song voice vanishes.  When I say something a bit more rote like, lift your straight right leg into the air, the sing-song is back.  So if I’m passionate and interested in teaching about a theme I speak in a natural voice!  Yay!  I’m not worrying about the voice during the rest of the time (for now), I’m just going to trust that it takes care of itself.

And, yay some people showed the last two days of my first week at the aquatic center.  About a third were my Oregon friends, I am so thankful for them.  It felt so good to teach.  It also feels really good to have an emerging stronger sense of confidence with my teaching style.

A friend posted this picture on her FB feed last week and I though it was appropriate:

Besides, we have stopped fighting anybody or anything. We
have to!

~BB page 103

 

And pictures of our basic early December lives:

It’s always a good day when you make cookies:

Pre assembling a new chair from nana & papa:

The truth is that I don’t just need people to teach yoga classes to.  I need people period.  This has been a huge struggle for me since I got sober.  I was experiencing some stress one day last week and I left to Target to go get some things we needed.  I thought about how I needed to get back to relieve my step-dad.  I sat down in the eating area and called my sponsor instead.  I felt so much better, like I had let go of huge weights I had been stubbornly pushing along.  I have been not been feeling a part of again here in Oregon AA.  I’m praying about it.  I know the solution lies first in my Higher Power and then second in action I will need to take.  Isolation leads to drink.  This is a fact for me.

I’ve experience many moments in the last weeks when I have asked myself, what am I doing?  I’m not sure if the yoga deal will pan out.  I know that I do love doing it.  I’m nearing my one year anniversary of blogging and yoga is what sparked this blog.  But is it enough, I wonder.  I’m going to just keep showing up.  I’m also looking forward to the rest of December and spending lots of time with loved relatives I don’t get to see that often.

I hope everyone out there can get closer to doing something career-wise that they kind of like or even (gasp) love.

I wish a bunch of Christmas love for you and your families.

~Namaste