What Price Are You Willing to Pay?

This evening when I was finally home after a day out at yoga classes, lunch with friends, and checking off my to-do lists, I sat still for the first time since I'd gotten out of bed this morning (after sleeping only two hours last night). I was wiped out and so I dozed in and out of sleep while trying to prepare to teach tomorrow's yoga class. Before I knew it, the time had come for me to gather up my things and head to the yoga studio for the second time today for more yoga teacher training. 

While driving I rounded the corner that heads from Springville to Provo and saw the familiar road and I realized just HOW MANY times I've made the jaunt from home to the yoga studio. I had driven that route this morning, two days before, and three days before that.  And that was just this week.  Basically, I often make the trek to and from the yoga studio several times a week which roughly equates to almost three hours spent just in driving back and forth between home and the studio. 

In my overtired state tonight I wondered, "What am I doing???  Tonight I should take a break ... I'm exhausted!"  For a split second I wondered about the effort it takes to train and certify as a yoga teacher in two months time (my choice made so that I could have yoga training under my belt before I start back into grad school). The reality hit me tonight that to practice yoga takes discipline and effort.  I was so tired from not sleeping last night that I wanted to rest rather than try and sit through a training.  And yet I realized just how important yoga is for me, and the reason why. 

Despite my exhaustion, yoga called and my deeper commitment to this process of becoming a certified yoga teacher pulled me off my bed, put me in my car, and drove me down the route that I've driven so many times that I think I could drive it blind folded.  It's the same inkling that pulls me out of my bed most mornings when I'm tired and yet make it to Syl's yoga class (albeit late).    In two months time, my own yoga practice and preparation as a yoga teacher have helped transform me at levels inside me that for months felt extremely chaotic, and have helped calm down an aggravating inner battle.  When I compare where and who I am today to where and who I was two months ago, the discipline, time, and effort that has been required for this process yields extremely satisfactory results.  Peace is much more familiar company to me now than I enjoyed prior to beginning my training as a yoga teacher and re-starting my regular yoga practice.  When yoga has never been a part of our lives, we may not miss it.  But my experience, and that of the people that I talk to who practiced yoga and then fell out of practice for a time, is such that we notice a wilt in our lives.  The benefit of being in yoga training tonight outweighed the cost of not resting.  I was able to overcome my exhaustion tonight because I knew that I'd be filled at a deeper level that would sustain me over time.  The way in which I feel filled with satisfaction and joy in being able to guide others towards a calmer self and more peaceful life invigorates me.  

"Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.  The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving and our becoming (Dallin H. Oaks)."  I feel cozily content in where my desires are leading me this round.  See where yoga will take you...

http://www.gobodhiyoga.com/