Balance Me

So, it occurred to me today, while I was sitting on the couch, sick for the second time in less than 2 months, that I am not living up to the title of my blog. Living Life, Living Yoga. If I was, I do believe I'd be healthier than I have been this fall. In my last post, I wrote about biting off a bit more than I could chew. It took a while to finagle my schedule to be a bit more "me-time" friendly, but I think I have done a good job. I now have thursdays completely off...no nannying, no yoga, not anything for anyone else except me. Same with tuesday mornings until 2:30pm. I think this is going to help my overall well-being, mental and physical health. I can't keep spreading myself too thin to make everyone else happy, because then I end up with strep throat, or the flu.

Today, on the couch I was wondering why I did this to myself. Why take on too much? Then I end up disappointing people when I can't follow through due to sickness, and I end up sick and feeling awful! I feel like since I got back from my retreat, and my summer took a turn towards sadness and disaster, I have been avoiding anything to do with silence or stillness, like the plague. I am in such a different place now than I was in June, and I honestly don't know how I stayed silent for 9 days at that damn retreat. I couldn't do it right now, if you paid me. And that scares me. I think I might explode if I stay still for too long...but I don't like feeling like that. I want to feel peaceful enough to be able to sit on my meditation cushion and not cry the entire time. My cushion sits at the foot of my bed, and I look at every day, multiple times a day...but I haven't been able to sit on it. Five minutes feels like an eternity to just sit in silence. How did I ever do 45 minutes, 6 times a day?

The only thing constant in life is how constantly everything is changing. I mean, everything! The seasons, our surroundings, our perspective, our lives which inevitably includes our deaths. Nothing is ever the same day to day, with the exception, I realize, of one thing: our interconnectedness as a universe. I try and take as much comfort in this as possible, though some days it feels a bit too large to grasp. However, on the days I can grasp it, I am so moved by how beautiful and deep-rooted the interconnectedness of every thing actually is. There are things happening in the world every single second of every single moment of every single day, that at any given second moment or day, we don't even know it's happening...but if it wasn't happening, then we might not be happening the way we are. Probably sounds like mumbo-jumbo, but it makes complete sense to me. Knowing this, allows me to feel more compassion and love for everything around me. I have to believe that everyone and everything is just doing whatever they need to do in order to survive in our world, be it good or bad. We don't know people's stories, and we don't know why they do certain things...but I have to believe that they believe they are doing it because they have to. Who am I to judge, and say otherwise? I can make decisions within my own moral compass for myself, and it might not work for other people, but that's ok...maybe their decisions don't work for me either. But we are still part of the same whole.

There really is so much beauty, love and compassion that fills our universe. And for all of that positive wonderful energy, there is inevitably going to be negative, sad energy. If we didn't have the balance, we wouldn't know how to appreciate the good stuff when it comes our way. I know I am guilty of doing just that, these past few months. I seemed to have lost touch my positive, enthusiastic self, due to traumatic circumstances...and I miss myself. I honestly think that the reason I got sick this week was partly due to the fact that I seemed to have found my enthusiastic self when I was teaching so much yoga last weekend. I had 49 people show up to my class at Back Bay, and I felt so much positive energy, and I felt so happy teaching yoga. It's what I am supposed to do! Be a yoga teacher! And I got to be one in full blossom this past weekend! I was so excited about it all, I used up too much energy, too quickly and still had my regular schedule of work and exercise to take part in.

It's all about finding that balance. Enough Yin and enough Yang. I know I don't have enough Yin...but i'm working on it, and I'll get there. I do feel like my relationship brings a huge amount of balance to my life, because he is my main balancing force on this earth. Us together feels like the perfect amount of Yin and Yang. I tend to be such a people person, that I count a lot on others to bring balance into my life...but I know I need to find my own kind of balance as well.

Little by little, all is coming.

Light and Love,

Sarah