Transitions

Well, it's my birthday month....the big five o
50!

I can't tell you how excited I am. Really. It seems like I have been hearing from all my friends for years and years how awesome it is to be 50.

Finally, you can be YOU.
you can say no.
you can begin to put your self first.
or at least near the top of the list.
you can do what you want.
you can say what you want.
etc.,.

I'm not really sure what all that means, but I can tell you how I feel about life right now. Pretty Damn Good.

It's been a rough year physically and I kind of lost hope for a while about what this old body of mine had in store for me. Awesome experience, in hindsight, of course.
I learned that if you share your burdens with other people, they can help keep you going. I don't mean whining and complaining (although I did my share of that). I mean asking for love and support and prayers. As soon as I let go of control,
I began to heal.

As a yoga teacher, I am always reminding my students to surrender and let go. It is so easy to preach, let me tell you. Not as easy to practice what you preach though. I am so glad I was given this lesson once again. I have had this love affair with perfection all my life. I knew at some point, perfection would fall in love with me too,
and I would live happily (and perfectly) ever after.

50

So, here's my hope for my "perfect" future. I begin to lean into the idea that happiness and perfection live on two different planets. I would like to live more on the
"happy planet".

My other hope. That I begin to spend more time enjoying the transitions in life. Yoga has taught me that in a flow yoga practice, the transitions between the poses are just as important as the poses themselves. Grace during the transitions between postures is just as important as grace in the postures. Just how does that apply to my life "off the mat"?

Maybe, just maybe, when life does it thing (you know, changes and shifts and doesn't really go the way you thought / hoped it would) maybe I can just sit with the reality of what is and be at peace knowing that all things happen for a reason.

Maybe, just maybe, I can learn to flow with a little more grace when I feel off balance or the earth shifting under my feet or the sky falling all around me.

Maybe, just maybe, I can still stay goal oriented with things, but be more involved in the journey towards that goal......less focused on the end result. Having goals is so important, but why feel like a failure if perhaps that goal isn't realized? Perhaps, on the journey, the goal shifts a bit to the left or right....or is abandoned all together. I don't want to feel like a whole segment of my life is lost if the "final product" isn't realized. It's all important.
The whole darn journey.

The piece I have above is titled Lip Service. As I was working with the image, I kept seeing lips flying out of a vessel. Now, as I put it with my words, I'm kinda amazed at how representative it is to what I'm feeling. I no longer want to pay Lip Service
to what I'm teaching.

I want to live it.

50

Transitions.

Grace.

Gratitude.

All is Good.

XO - LA