For Unexpected Grace

I had a S*** year last year...  It was like a boulder rolling down a hill gathering force and strength to end the year in devastation of loss.  Loss in the death of a woman that was like a sister and it was so fast and so hard it was like a punch in the gut leaving us winded and gasping in pain.  Loss in a relationship that I thought was a valued friendship but instead can only be characterized as "the cover is not the book."  

But in a huge sigh of relief I started the year out on new pathways I had chosen and began working to put into place last fall.  I knew that I would be beginning my certification training for becoming a yoga instructor and then later this year/early next year, as a personal trainer.  This has been on my bucket list for some time and in the fall I made up my mind to start following this path.  I knew it was time to do something I had been wanting to do for the last 5 years.

The first full day of yoga training took place on the day of Sherry's funeral.  It was like working on something new and exciting with a huge hole in my heart.  She was so excited for me to start this and so supportive and it was exhilarating and debilitating at the same time...I missed her so much.  I knew I would not be able to go to Alabama for her memorial service so it was difficult at best.

Yoga is nothing like I thought based on my experience with it in classes.  I went into the practice thinking that I had positions I needed to  "perfect" because, like most people, I was better at some than others.  I knew there was the philosophy and anatomy to be learned.  I had no idea the impact it would have on me processing all of the grief.  The spiritual side that it opened up.

Truly, it is a moving meditation.  You need to let go and get out of your head and let your heart open up to what it truly is and can be.  But with that can be the opening of emotions that you don't expect.  Every class I found that keeping my tears in, swallowing the lump in my throat was a monumental effort.  Sometimes, as grief does, it came out sideways and I felt more like I was riding a broom than being a peaceful and focused yogini.  I drove home with tears.  I sat in the kitchen telling the hubs through sobs that I could not do this anymore.  It didn't feel good on any level.

But I kept going...

And then on our intensive weekend this month we did a meditation on Friday night intended to send healing and love to one another.  As much as I tried to focus on sending, all I could feel and think was that I was, once again, going to swallow it and cry on the way home.  It felt wonderful and horrible at the same time.  I was soaking up so much from others but I felt so guilty and selfish that I was struggling to send it to others.

Holy s*** was I ever going to get through this training?  My heart was like a ball and chain I drug behind me with every step.

The following day as we moved into the next section, our instructor started talking about the night before and asking how people felt.  The first person started to share and I sat with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees with my faced pressed into my legs looking over to watch the others.  With each person sharing, more tears fell until I felt like I would be cried dry by the end of the day.  How did I really have that much fluid in my tear ducts to keep flowing like that?  I felt like one gigantic open wound all over again.

And then the shift...

Our instructor asked if I was OK... I think she knew it was time to open the door...

Don't you love and hate that question all at the same time?  "Miss Sally gal are you OK?"

Well...yes and no.  Yes because I have finally decided to take my finger out of the dike and no because this feels like I will never be the same again.  But I was allowed the grace to tell people so there I went...

I told them all the gigantic effort it was to keep coming to class.  The swallowing the constant lump in my throat.  The fighting back tears at any moment when positions opened the emotions or learning how to teach yoga to trauma patients made me feel like one.   I told them of the profound grief of losing a dear friend of 20 years and the sadness of learning that one who I loved as a friend was nothing more than a fraud and turned on me with such enmity it left me in disbelief.  I told them, this is not what I thought my yoga path would be...

And then it was like a huge weight had been removed.  The grief was floating away like a feather on a breeze.  The disbelief of the friendship that was counterfeit and void of authenticity was in the rear view mirror.   The importance of those people in the room who were good and kind people was a soft place to fall.

My unexpected grace.

I think Sherry had something to do with that enormous wave of love and healing...  It was way overdue.

Shortly after that class I got an email from a fellow student that shared she had been through the same betrayal of a friendship of a co-worker also and she understood what I felt...and that I could count on her being my friend in this crazy mess called life.  Another student had told of her own experience with the same feelings while doing yoga and that she went through much of what I was feeling during a rough time in her own life.  And another reached out to get together for lunch to connect and talk about some of the things she understood I had been feeling.

And just like that, all that I had been struggling with in the depths of losing to death a member of the tribe I love so deeply, and finding that one never was truly a friend, I was presented with a group of people with incredible hearts.  People that I have only known a few months and who circled around me and became my soft place to fall.  They understood what this spiritual path can do for a soul, they get it.  And they stood by me with their kind hearts to offer the grace I needed to let out the pain, to bless it and let it go.  To remind me that I have wonderful people surrounding me with love and kind hearts.  They are real and they are a tribe I had not considered at the start.

But I am so grateful for their support.

And now I can laugh.  I can truly enjoy my yoga.

And if I find tears coming, I'm safe and they get it.  They know my loss to death has been so hard and they do not judge.  These months together transform us all in different ways.

And the first weekend in June we will graduate and damn... those trainings will be over and then what?

So Yoga Tribe, do we have reunions scheduled?

Namaste cool peeps, I am so grateful for you and the beautiful grace you afforded me to grow and let go.  I feel like a new humanoid and I feel like I have new wings.  Here's to a new path!