My Mission
My mission is to bring students into emotional and physical balance so that their most authentic expression arises naturally. To awaken people to their true calling in life, and give them the skills and emotional confidence to allow that to blossom … for real.
Sounds good. But how does it work?
Yoga has been teaching this transformation for thousands of years. I don’t teach anything new. I just translate the ancient wisdom into common sense practices that work in a modern world; a world where people have to pay the rent in an expensive market, keep the kids fed, and stay up to date with new technology.
The key is this:
Imagine a time in your life when you had a deep insight about what was right for you to do – maybe it was asking your partner to marry you, maybe it was it was leaving a relationship that was comfortable, but not right. It’s a kind of knowing that doesn’t need justification. You just know it’s right and true.
Take a moment now to recall that feeling of knowing.
Sanskrit has a word for that feeling: viveka. It means discernment of what is deeply true and right and being able to distinguish that from all the other less noble thoughts and feelings that may distract you.
When you act according to that knowing – that viveka - there’s a feeling of peace and confidence that’s like taking a deep breath and settling in. Sanskrit calls that feeling hlada.
The goal of yoga is to live in that state of deep knowing all the time.
Like growing a garden, changes rarely happen with a single flash of insight. The practice of yoga is the cultivation - in body, mind & spirit - of the clarity to know the right thing to do, and the confidence to actually do it.
It’s not just intuition, and it’s not just doing what you want. In fact, what’s right – what’s going to give you that deep sense of calm and balance – is often different from what you want. For example, it might mean taking a second job to pay for a house that’s big enough for the whole family, or to pay for a graduate program that’s been calling you for years. It’s tough, but when you know it’s right, there’s a sense of peace that’s irreplaceable. It’s a huge contrast to the anxiety and second guessing that most of us live with.
Balance is the key
Hearing that voice inside can be hard. “I really want to do that graduate program, but is it really practical?” The practices of yoga (the postures, breathing, meditation, healthy eating, meeting with a mentor etc.) are all about bringing you back into a state of balance, stability and clarity so that you have confidence in knowing which direction to go at what time.
Yoga is a practical path from the world of anxiety, self-doubt, and physical imbalance to that state of calm confidence.
The experience of the yoga path - when you do your practice under the guidance of a qualified teacher – is that your innate talents emerge, and your hang-ups fade. This is what it’s like to step into your calling. When you start to act on it, you experience hlada – a sense of confidence and peace that you’re exactly where you belong.
For some the calling is big. You might be called to run for office or take an important leadership role in your community. Or you might be called to take a job at the local auto mechanic shop and put wholesome food on the table for your kids every day. What’s important is not whether you end up famous or obscure. What’s important is the radiant sense of calm and wisdom that emanates from someone who is doing what they were put here on earth to do.
Yoga is the practical, step-by-step path to that living that experience.