My theme in my yoga class for 2014 was to try to feel good in even the most uncomfortable positions. Whether I was in a crazy arm balance, all twisted up or in painful pigeon pose I surrendered to the pain and found a way to feel good. When you can teach yourself how to do this, you will never suffer again. Pain is inevitable, but the suffering part is optional. Check out this video to see exactly what I mean.
2014 brought me many chances to practice my yoga theme off the mat and it scared to sparkle out of me. There are two types of fear. Help I’m being chased by a tiger fear and insane roller coaster fear. When you are experiencing the first type of fear, your life is actually in danger. You body tells you to run for your life and get out of that situation as fast as possible. When you are experiencing the second type of fear your body tells you to run for your life and get out of that situation as fast as possible. The thing is when you go on a roller coaster, your life isn’t actually in danger even though it feels physically the same as the tiger situation.
When I was feeling uncomfortable and scared in my life this year my body told me to run as fast as I could and get the hell out of there. What I had to do was feel that fear, know my life wasn’t in danger and do whatever I needed to do anyway.
In yoga class when I was in those uncomfortable positions it would feel even better if I surrendered into the pose and trusted that was where I supposed to be in that moment even if it was painful. I could have chosen to struggle through it, but instead I found a way to feel good despite the pain.
Here are some of my experiences from this year where I got to practice all of that!
I had a miscarriage and talked about it in the Huffington Post.
This was scary for so many reasons. First, many people didn’t even know that my husband and I wanted to bring a sparkly baby unicorn in to this world. Second, when we did, the souls (identical twins) decided to not come through my body. Third, this subject seemed to be a shameful one that nobody talked about so who I was to be the one to bring it to light? After it happened I remembered my theme in yoga was to find a way to feel good in even the most uncomfortable situations and holy moly was this one uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable emotionally and physically.
Once I started talking about what was going on for me, I found out that so many other people I knew in my life had gone through the same thing and never talked about it. Sharing my story gave them the bravery to share theirs too. I realized if this was true for the people in my life, then it must be true for so many others so I went public with the information even though it scared me. My body said, “Run!” I felt that fear and did it anyway and the results were epic.
Hundreds of people shared their stories with me publicly. It was so inspiring! My bravery allowed hundreds of others to feel brave too. It gave people hope and that felt really good.
The miscarriage was also physically uncomfortable. As I had waves of painful cramps roll in, I embraced the pain and took deep breathes and rode the waves instead of trying to push them away. In a way it started to feel good because I realized how badass my body is to know that this pregnancy wasn’t a viable one and it knew what to do to flush out my womb so I could have space for a healthy pregnancy. Isn’t that incredible!?!?! My body rocks!
This whole experience taught me to just surrender to the Universe and trust that everything will unfold with divine timing. When I do that with every other area of my life, things unfold even more magically than I ever could have imagined. Why would this be any different? And with that, “I surrender and trust. It’s ALL happening!”
I led my first retreat.
The reason this was so crazy and scary was because I had never even been to a retreat, much less led one. It was something I always wanted to do, but was too scared to do it, until one day I did…and it was awesome! I felt pangs of uncomfortableness through the entire process and there were countless moments where I felt, “Run! Don’t do this! Get out as fast as you can.” But I didn’t. I felt that fear and did it anyway…and it felt good! It’s really hard for me to put into words the epicness that was the first Rock Your Life Retreat with Ryan Montbleau, but if I had to I would say that is was a life-shifting adventure that took place in one of the most beautiful places in the world with the most beautiful people in attendance and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It felt good!!!
If I listened to my fear and run, I would have been so selfish because the people who were there had their lives shifted for the better because of the experience. The super awesome bonus was, so did mine!
I surrendered to the Universe and trusted that it would all be divine and it was! I’m leading my next retreat the end of February and it sold out with a waiting list. Check it out and sign up for the waiting list>>> here.
I spoke in public in front of hundreds of people.
A couple of years ago I was petrified to speak in public. I would do it, but I would throw up every single time. My body felt like it was being chased by a tiger. Whenever I finally got my butt on stage a tiger never once came out of the audience to try to eat me. What always happened was I felt home.
When I was asked to speak at Ignite Burlington at first I was excited. Then the fear set in and I heard, “Run! Don’t do this! Are you crazy? You’re going to die.”
But I did it anyway and it was amazing. It felt really good.
I surrendered to the Universe. I inspired many people that day to be brave and to rock their lives after loss. I’m so grateful I didn’t run.
I challenge you to pick a theme to focus on for 2015. Mine is, “It’s ALL happening and I know what to do.”
Let me know what yours is by joining the conversation at the bottom of this blog.
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The awesome in me sees and bows to the awesome in you,
What’s your theme for 2015?
Ah! I love YOUR theme 🙂 It feels good to say and hear. Mine is similar: Trust your intuition and take action. That’s it. No regrets.