From distraction to action, and even a bit of stillness — a path inspired by ancient wisdom Imagine the excitement of being a child on that long-awaited day when you’re gifted the toy you’ve been waiting for FOREVER! Yet your beyond-measure excitement quickly turns into irritation as a seemingly impenetrable plastic wrapping separates you from your gift.
My presents to presence? The timeless sister sciences, Ayurveda and Yoga.
The barriers on my path? Tightly bound patterns, such as yet another distraction to occupy my attention, knowing it’s in the stillness that what I’m looking for resides.
My process? One that will resonate with you if you’re drawn to the role of a facilitator or yearn for a more harmonious existence amidst life’s chaos.
Ayurveda’s significance
This recognition was instant and strong enough to drive me to earn credentials as a Clinical Ayurveda Specialist from the first accredited school in the U.S. Considering my circumstances then were anything but favorable to this feat; it was of no surprise that I managed to keep this healing wisdom I was learning at arm’s length. Yes, those tightly bound patterns, like the plastic wrapping around the kid’s toy, kept me from exploring it where it counted — in my daily life.
Yoga’s complementary role
My initial encounter with Yoga was somewhat similar. While packing up after offering a ‘Spinning Teacher Training’ at the Pasadena Athletic Club, I heard a yoga teacher preparing her students for pranayama. Her voice called to me, and I decided to attend that yoga class. I was quickly humbled, however, by how difficult it was to slow down enough to engage in the breathing practice offered. So, I settled for a purely physical approach to this spiritual science of yoga. A distraction that kept the more profound teachings, those revealed only in greater stillness, also at arm’s length.
The turning point
This came when Avry, the yoga teacher who challenged me with that breathwork, asked me to teach her Ayurveda. This request from someone who had now become a friend and had just received a cancer diagnosis was the catalyst for another bold move. One that got me to return to school and revisit all the foundational principles of Ayurveda one by one. This time, I wasn’t there solely to feed my intellect. Instead, my purpose was to apply the teachings to my daily life.
While Avry began to enjoy greater well-being from her daily Ayurveda practices, so did I. In helping her get to know yoga’s sister experientially, I began to do this for myself as well, and by doing so, I started to dissolve what had been for me that tightly bound plastic wrapping around my gifts.
Simultaneously, I gradually softened my tight grip on the more physically intense aspects of the yoga practice. This, in turn, cleared the space for embracing its more subtle offerings, such as allowing myself to experience stillness. Avry’s breathwork and meditation continue to guide and nourish me nearly two decades later!
From friction emerged a pearl
The path to bringing the sister sciences ‘home’ was lengthy; full of reminders to slow down and catch my distractions. Requirements in accessing safe space to dismantle limiting beliefs, such as the false notion that admiring something from a distance is sustainable. For someone unaccustomed to patience, it was a frustrating process. Fortunately, as it was the case for me, brilliant treasures can break through behind stubborn barriers constructed from doubt, distraction, criticism, and more.
Yes, the arduous path I’ve traveled has gifted me invaluable experience. The kind that has inspired access to a more generous relationship to my own sense of well-being. From these life lessons, along with the stable and nourishing foundation oozing from these sister sciences, emerged a skill I value immensely. The capacity to extend a hand to meet another exactly where they are. This way, as natural as learning any skill you apply yourself to continuously, so too becomes overcoming your limitations.
No gifts should wait to be unwrapped when the world eagerly anticipates the brilliance you bring forth in your ‘present.’
Enveloped in Gratitude for your presence here.
Beyond my hand, however, what you all have here is each other’s hands. As a wise woman shared with me today:
“Community is the kind of Medicine that keeps us Human”