Joy

Joy

Confía en tu Camino

Trust your Journey

On Friday, I felt really inspired and wrote a blog post, about yoga and life, that I shared here. I also shared it with my coach. She asked some follow up questions one of which I answered to that I was in a place of peace and felt cozy in my heart and that I wanted to remember this feeling. She told me that while reading what I wrote she felt the same way. I’ve been in a very low/unpleasant state of emotional and mental health for the past two months or so, for several reasons. That’s included a lot of feeling overwhelmed, depressed, misunderstood, lonely, triggered, going back to traumas and experiences of the past and reactions and ways of the past that don’t work for me anymore. But I’ve built a so much more authentic life for myself that I can’t use these habitual patterns anymore. Now I have awareness of them and my inner wisdom and body will tell me. It feels uncomfortable to do the things that I used to, to protect myself.

And all the events since Friday morning have been a ray of beautiful light.  

I’ve found my physical strength in the way I’m training and moving to be ready to go to this backpacking trip to Chile. I found hope in the way that I slowly been feeling better and have been able to connect again to the people I love, coming back from that protective shell and isolation. I found inspiration in the way that Yoga has started to feel again like a safe place of unity (yoga=yoke=union). I found acceptance and openness. I found joy in the experience of getting a new tattoo in my body that was inspired by this magical trip to Africa.

I feel full of joy. I know life is not perfect. I know there will be more ups and downs. I know I am a very sensitive, vulnerable human. I know there’s always more work to do.

But I feel full of joy.

Can you maybe, even if just for a second, feel it too?

Remember this feeling.

Love,

elaine

Bittersweet Bliss

Bittersweet Bliss

I started reading this book yesterday that speaks about our gift zone. Without getting into too much detail, for me the gift zone is that place (brief moments, at least for me) where you feel bliss, awe, wonder, where you are your most authentic self in joy and as well as in suffering. And the author recommends that when you find yourself in your gift zone you should try to stay in it for just a little bit longer. That’s what I’m doing while writing this.
Last night I went to bed with a weird feeling, my body and mind were fatigued and I woke up this morning feeling the same way. I snoozed through the alarm to go to yoga at 6am (which for me is pretty early lol) but the dogs woke me up 30 minutes later and I decided to get dressed and go; I still had time… And while driving to the studio, a feeling of peace came over me, a sense that I was on the right path. I felt joy and sadness all at the same time for the beauty of the sky waking up to the day in many colors (shades of orange, purple, grey) and for the human suffering of my mind and heart.

I was in my gift zone.

And then I went to yoga, which for me has been a place of struggle lately. Yoga has been a practice in my life for longer than 10 years but somehow I find myself in a place where I don’t feel it anymore. As a teacher and a forever student, I’ve been lost in my practice and my journey. But today, after a long time, I was one with the practice again. It was a slow practice of patience and balance where I was constantly challenged. Where I found myself wobbling in a crescent lunge with side bend that I “hate” but I could still find compassion for myself. I could still find joy when falling from chapasana. And the thing is, it’s not really physical, is all in the works of my inner being. And I found myself free from the teacher’s mind. I wasn’t taking mental notes of poses to teach, of things that I like and didn’t. I was not comparing myself. I found myself back into my center, this place where my strengths and vulnerabilities can shine. A place where I can find joy even for the things that I don’t like about myself or that I try to hide about myself;  bittersweet bliss for this life.
When the practice was coming to an end and we were in savasana, I felt overwhelmed by my feelings and tears started coming from my eyes. There was a brief moment of embarrassment when I thought: What if the teacher or someone can see that I’m crying? But then, I let that go and came back to that center, to that place where I’m most myself and where I can find such beauty and sadness that I can cry in savasana. I embraced it. Who cares if someone can see me crying?
I thought I would share this because life can be really hard and throughout all the challenges and triggers where we go back to our traumas, to our habitual places that might not serve us anymore, to our conditioning we can get disillusioned. We can get bitter, angry, very protective and isolated. And I’m happy that I’m back in a place of openness where I can connect and let myself feel. And to make it even better, there was a puppy in yoga class. What more can you ask for?

Let life make you cry and make you dance.

Love,

elaine

My Yoga Journey

My Yoga Journey

I started practicing Yoga somewhere around 2011, I was 29 y/o. I was completing my four years of Anesthesia residency in Miami. My life basically consistent of equal parts brutal work and brutal partying. I remember wanting to find a replacement for ballet (which was my life’s passion up to that moment) and also a way to exercise and stay skinny (living in Miami it was hard to not get caught up with my physical appearance). My first yoga class ever was outdoors by the bay under a huge gazebo. It was packed with all sorts of people and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. From there, I continued to go to occasional classes in Miami and then Boston, where I moved to complete a subspecialty in Anesthesia for pregnant women in 2012. At that point, I still questioned if yoga was for me and thought that I was definitely not good at it and not strong enough; at least I was flexible from my years dancing.

It wasn’t until I moved to New Orleans in 2013, for my first job, that I really started practicing more consistently. Slowly but surely, I stop looking so much around me during class for who was doing what. I stop comparing myself so much and I started having this sense that yoga was more than just doing all these difficult poses and chaturangas and looking good at it. I had these really brief moments where I could feel myself experiencing something that was beyond a physical practice of movement; something intangible but beautiful.

I slowly started learning the poses in Sanskrit and getting this curiosity to learn more about Yoga. I remember practicing side by side with my husband at the time and how he would spent so much time looking at me and correcting my “alignment” in the poses. I would feel so self-conscious, embarrassed and angry. I had no idea how much I would grow through this practice and how one day I would so clearly see that yoga is not about how a pose looks but about how it feels. It is definitely not about performing but about having a practice that welcomes you just as you are and allows us to use breath, movement and stillness to go within and learn so much about life and about ourselves.

After I got a divorced in 2018, I started feeling a calling to participate in a yoga teacher training. I completed my first 200hr yoga teacher training that year and as I’ve had heard from so many, it was life-changing. There is a difficulty in finding words to describe why is such a transformative experience but I can say that a big part of it is the connections you create and the vulnerability and intimacy that you experience. Even though I had wanted to complete this training, I never really saw myself as a teacher. I had huge impostor syndrome and also never really saw myself as a really good yoga student (how can I teach if I can’t do arm balances or inversions?). I taught some small group classes at home (mostly friends) and then stop teaching until the pandemic came. I continued my regular practice and with it a lot of unconscious learning and change was happening. When the pandemic started, I found refuge in physical activity and I started teaching yoga, gentle stretches and meditation online from home. I still felt so inadequate as a teacher and had no trust in my capabilities.

Eventually I quit my job as a doctor in Louisiana and went to live on the road for almost a year. On November 15th, 2021 I came to Denver to visit friends and ended up staying here for good. I was unemployed and terrified of going back to work as a doctor. I was looking for something else that could give my life meaning or perhaps a new and different way to work in Medicine as well as with my life passions. I heard that inner voice calling me to go deeper into Yoga again, so I decided to complete a 300 hour Yoga and Psychology teacher training. I believed this was a good fit as it combined mental health and the science (more Western side) of it with the yoga (Eastern) more spiritual side of things. During the training, I felt a clear calling to have the courage to start teaching again and so I decided to auditioned for yoga teaching jobs in Denver. On April 14th, 2021 I taught my first class and during that first month I taught a total of 40 classes. I was scared but excited and I was loving it. I started teaching in just one studio but quickly had 2 other teaching jobs. It was exhilarating to do something not for the money but for the love of it. I enjoyed creating weekly music playlists, working on my sequences and finding intentions to contemplate during class. I was still unsure of who I was as a teacher and if I was any good at it for that matter but I had a sense that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing in that moment. I enjoyed so much creating community in the studio and participating in so many different yoga-related events.

In June, I also started working again in the hospital. I found a part-time job that allowed me to have a lot of autonomy, flexibility and time off. It was a really scary transition but a successful one. So as of today, I’ve been teaching yoga for about 8 months, 6 of which I’ve been also back working as an Anesthesiologist. I’ve taught 135 classes and feel so very proud of myself. More important than numbers, I’ve met so many fantastic people and make lots of authentic beautiful connections. And I think, I’ve help some people with my teaching in one way or another.

Last week, I made the difficult decision to step away from teaching all my regular classes and to take a break from teaching Yoga at least for some time. I do plan to stay as a substitute teacher so I can stay active in the community. This decision might seem sudden or confusing but my intuition was telling me that I needed to go back to the roots, to the basics, to the beginning. I need to remember what Yoga is to me, I need to recover the spirit of my own personal practice and perhaps redefine why I wanted to teach Yoga in the first place. When I quit my medical job and went on the road, I had bits of revelations of what I wanted to do to make this world better in my own small way. I wanted to combine my life sufferings (childhood trauma, depression, mental health struggles) with my life passions (yoga, dancing, movement, travel) into some sort of project that would help make a change even if just for a few. I wanted to be more active in the field of mental health, to share my experiences and help others that way. I want to remember those intentions and that calling because I truly think is important. I truly feel that it matters and that so many, like me, need support. So many, need a voice to advocate for them, when they can’t. So many need to be listened to, to find compassion and loving kindness. So I am hoping that this break will help me find some time for myself to heal from my most recent episode of the blues and will also allow me to reinvent myself and my contributions to this world.

Wild Flower

Wild Flower

Today I had lots of plans but ended up abruptly leaving the city. As soon as I got on the road on my way to Rocky Mountains National Park, a sense of peace and tranquility came over me. The magnificent view of the mountains on the horizon was whispering home to my heart. 

Soon enough I had no cell signal and it was just me, the road and the country side. I was in awe with all the shades of green of Colorado in the summer time. I was blasting the music, singing to the top of my lungs, letting all my worries go away if even just for a few hours. 

The river was making me company alongside the road, the pine trees kept getting greener and lusher as I drove more and more into the mountains. The river’s crystalline water over the rocks brought a strong memory to my mind. I was back to last summer at Yosemite National Park admiring the majestic Vernal and Nevada falls. Memories of my year on the road started flooding me, filling me with a bittersweet nostalgia and deep gratitude. 

I started my hike feeling excited and light-hearted; like I had already left some of those heavy emotions I was carrying wash away on the road. Immediately Mother Earth covered me in the scent of pine trees and the feel of a subtle breeze of fresh air. I was HOME. I started saying thank you out loud LOL I think thanking nature, thanking myself, and thanking life for taking me here. The trail was full of all sorts of green, and yellow and lilac wildflowers everywhere, sparkling under the morning sunlight. I was happy. 

Throughout the journey to get to my hiking destination, I was experiencing an emotional & mental journey back into the last year and a half since I quit my job and went to live on the road. I remembered that one time on a hike when I turned a corner and there was a young bear playing with a tree trunk. I remembered going up the cables of Half Dome with my friend Derek (I still can’t believe I did that), getting lost while hiking in snow for the first time at Great Basin, all the people I met on the trails and all the literal and figurative mountains I’ve conquered. 

At the end of the trail, Ouzel falls was waiting for me, its waters wild and free. I took my hiking boots off and without a second thought got my feet into the water. It was freezing cold! The cold temperature was creeping up my body but I didn’t care; it was as if it was awakening me all over again to the beauty of nature that I never want to become immune to. 

I’ve been feeling out of balance and ungrounded lately and most recently getting kind of down on myself, but all these memories and this present experience brought a certainty to my heart of how strong I truly am. I felt like a wildflower, swelling from tender bud to full bloom but also fragile and aware of the swift passage of life. And I was ok with it.

Beautiful Messes from The Road

Beautiful Messes from The Road

Living on the road is definitely a trial and error process. My first few weeks on this trip have been fun and funny; full of beautiful sights and interesting challenges.

So here are some of this journey’s anecdotes and lessons:

  • Perfecting the art of “peeing in your car”– I quickly realized I needed to find a way to urinate in my car. I do use a female urination device and a Nalgene canteen while I am hiking and camping. But after a failed attempt using these in my car… I needed a different method. Since I am not planning on buying diapers anytime soon, I found a few items that make this mission possible: a towel (to cover yourself), toilet paper (pretty self-explanatory), a 30 ounce smart cooler (to urinate in) and no shame. Say what you will, but it works perfectly!
  • Getting overly excited about a night out – These days my diet consists mostly of fruit, tuna, granola/protein bars and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So I was thrilled at the prospect of having dinner at a very nice Texan restaurant. I had a couple of margaritas, very spicy fried oyster nachos, a salad and dessert. It was delicious and a blast. The after dinner situation was another story. Let’s just say I spent a while hugging the toilet and then laying on the floor of the bathroom. After twenty-four hours I was back to normal. Sadly, recovery is not the same as when I was in my twenties.  
  • The danger of new surfaces – On the second day of my trip I twisted my ankle while going down the stairs of the Airbnb. The next day, in a different place and while icing my painful ankle, I bumped my head with the kitchen counter. I had immediate swelling and pain for days. Evidently, I am a “bit” clumsy but still, I think it’s important to emphasize watching your movements in new environments.
  • The ever changing weather – I have been monitoring the weather since before the trip. My biggest worry was  being cold at night inside the roof top tent. Then, I get to the Big Bend National Park area and it was extremely hot. To be transparent, we did camped for a few nights but not as many as I was originally planning. Thankfully, we found a cabin with air conditioning. Afterwards, we have experienced unexpected wind and snow storms as well. The lesson here: plan all you want but be flexible and safe.
  • Do you really know how much stuff you own? – I thought I had very little stuff for the trip. The morning of our departure, I packed my car up to the roof. I had to admit then that more storage, giving away and getting rid of was needed. After doing all of the above, I created a new rule that I could only have one of any particular item. While I still have several face creams, underwear and sunglasses, this was definitely a lesson on letting go. Having your whole “life” in a car is not as easy as it might look.
  • Buying a US park pass – This $80 pass, which saves you lots of money if you are visiting several parks, needs to be purchased online. Also, you should buy it prior to starting your trip when you still have a permanent address. When I was in Alpine, a town in Texas, I wondered where I would mail mine to. I ended up mailing it to the post office; literally in the middle of nowhere. Next day I go to Big Bend, the ranger at the entrance tells me I could have bought the pass at the park. I don’t think this is the case everywhere so I strongly recommend to buy it beforehand.
  • Be careful what you wish for –Rocco, one of my dogs, has always been a nervous pup.  Recently, I bought a cbd oil that was recommended by a friend. I really needed to rest after a long drive, so I decided to give Rocco a good dose of it. After a while, he seemed pretty mellow and I was very pleased and looking forward to a good night sleep in our roof top tent. A couple of hours later he vomited on one of our blankets. It was dark outside and freezing cold so my mission was to contain the vomit and avoid getting anything else inside the tent dirty. He proceeded to puke about ten times, some on my pillow and two sheets. Between taking care of him, cleaning and keeping ourselves warm it was an insane night. But he’s all good now!
  • Giving yourself a break from a break – I find that it’s taking me some time to get used to this new lifestyle. I still feel and act as if I was working a high stress job at the hospital. Even when not working a regular job and with days mostly consisting of driving, exploring and hiking, rest and self-care are needed. I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to do, do and do. But sometimes we need to stop, be still and just relax. Today I took a rest day to read, give the dogs a bath, write and cook. I had a woodpecker and a hawk as unexpected visitors. It was a beautiful sight and a magnificent day.

In conclusion, the nomad life has been a challenge in many ways but anything new is. Always keep that in mind. Don’t let fear stop you from shaking things up, changing or taking a leap into the unknown.

That’s all for now.

See you on the road,

Elaine