Tag: Patience

smiling – saying to pain that you choose not to suffer

On Yoga Studio Ownership

Looking out the window of my urban retreat…

by ErinLeave a Comment on Looking out the window of my urban retreat…

A couple of weeks ago, I felt stress related to “the yoga studio”. It put me into a little bit of soul searching – was this what I wanted to do when I was happily daydreaming & writing my business plan last year? The work being asked of me felt different than I imagined it. There was pressure, uncertainty and a little bit of confusion. That is not how I want to operate. I left corporate America to experience creative freedom, I had to bring back that feeling of fluidity – trust – and inspiration.

Luckily this investigation coincided with the end of summer and the cosmic energy of “back to school” where even the most unorganized of us feel some sort of reboot with the potential of a fresh notebook or organized binder. The gearing up for fall was the perfect time to reframe and loop back to that original vision that had me so inspired to set out on my own yoga business: retreats, restorative yoga, making opportunities for business women and parents and friends and caretakers and tired people to downshift more than the routine 60 minute yoga class or sporadic sound bath.

Over the past two weeks, I have met one on one with every single one of the teachers and providers out of OM to brainstorm their classes, special events and retreats – all focused in on the question of who we want to serve. The guiding principles?

Does it feel simple? Does it feel life-giving? Is it relational?

And the final motif: “everything must feed everything”.

It’s now a Wednesday morning and I got to the studio pretty early… before 7a, and saw the sunrise from our balcony. The studio was open for silence and that 30 minutes is some of my favorite time in the studio each week. I sit on the mat, with others, and let myself just review what is on my heart and mind without the laptop to multi-task or the phone to Google or the chat to GPT. I feel it out.

Studio silence breaks at 8 with a little small group share:

How are we showing up today?

What is our intention?

Then we proceed with toning the chakras – chanting – and the blessing: lokah samastah sukhino bhavntu.

Everybody’s story starts somewhere and, in reflection of this vision (which is coming to fruition) for retreat and time to feel like yourself, I realize OM Old Orchard is what I always wanted my whole life. You know, there are not a ton of places that allow you to truly show up as you are with reduced pressure to spend, to be and to commit.

As a business woman, I am taking some calculated risks experimenting with pricing and programming – so that everything about this place feels supportive. As my therapist says, “the highest form of respect you can show another person is the power of choice.”

I want the business I run to respect you. If that makes sense.

I know that in a few years, some of the questions I am working through will be answered. The methods I am experimenting with will show me what to run with and what to let die on the vine. I am aware this place of growth I am in is because of the growth I did because of a previous season of growth which I was in because I had grown, and so on….

Isn’t it funny how our edges are constant invitations into present moment acceptance? And – ultimately – into the future that is aligned with the seed of who we have always been…

On September 7th, I’ll be offering a free Fall Intention Setting Workshop from my yoga studio & urban retreat… available in person and via recording. The workshop will present a guiding sutra and inspired text. The programming for fall will be themed on a “pre new year’s new year”, as we lay the groundwork for our desired habit changes, health goals and mental peace.

There is still so much work to do to truly articulate how to maximize what we are creating at OM in support of your personal life. It is not about “going to yoga” but about truly giving yourself the reprieve, the break.

I suppose all of this is to say – to my past self, thank you for growing to this place. To my future self, thank you for your patience.

And to my present self: get to work 🙃 ❤️ ✌🏽erin

Words in Sentences

Keeping Yourself Intact

by Erin2 Comments on Keeping Yourself Intact

Last night, I stayed up until one in the morning, grooming a 4 page file that will print into a stair step fold on synthetic treeless paper and offer the words I have read forwards and backwards after waking and writing them at odd hours throughout the year, all lined up with inspired artwork, imagery and packaged up in a signature out side of the box idea.

It has been a labor of love and I can only pray with fingers crossed that this next proof has the measurements right so that I can confidently move all in on the next step.

One of my favorite parts of last night, was reading to my sister over FaceTime while she worked on a puzzle. I still can’t quite read the end without crying and when I got through it, I laughed through tears and looked at my sister. Who normally has quips and ideas and thoughts but in that moment, just looked over while still working on the puzzle – had tears in her eyes as well – and said, “that’s awesome.”

It is awesome. It’s a stew of memory, real stories, and intention.

Lately, when I feel like I absolutely have bitten off way too much, what helps me is that this project is actually awesome.

See, I don’t yet know how all the yoga fits with the self-publishing my personal canon fits with raising the dogs fits with perfecting the homemade biscuits supports the new marriage helps with the step parenting guides the getting one kid off the college informs the shaping the upcoming driver tends as the helpful daughter makes space as the committed granddaughter.

But I do know life is not right without it all.

And I do know the one consistency in all of it is my need to “not quench the spirit”.

Which, for as important of concept in my day to day life, ironically is the theme of the devotional I just cannot seem to get off the ground.

In conversations lately, I have heard several friends expressing a desire to be out from under the microscope, relieved from the tone police, allowed to live their life, trusted.

I find this theme is as present in my day to day (through my own experience or in listening to theirs) as the theme to not quench the spirit, and both ideas are equally present in my ambition – my active, iterative task list – my yoga life.

Again, this leads me to this question: how does it all tie together?

Keeping yourself intact when you feel ripped a part or scrutinized takes an enormous amount of mental resolve. Mental resolve takes patience.

One of the original Greek words for patience was “long suffering”.

What I have learned in my creative process and the requirement to “hold the line” of concentration in order to bring all of the inspired bits and pieces into one completed work, is it is an active state of listening. At least, for me it is.

Does “long suffering” get easier when patience isn’t working through something, but listening through something?

Relationally, I know the more tense I feel equates to the need I have to defend myself or explain, to accommodate or justify.

I have learned over time, becoming witness and listening helps any emotional mess that wants to cause erroneous emotional labor in my emotional world stay outside of my world. Similar to my midnight hours last night, it is all about listening. Responding, not reacting.

Keeping yourself intact, I do believe, requires you know the root truth of who you are, what you are trying to accomplish.

These motivations help you say yes and allow or to say no and avoid.

My file is at the printer this morning. I am hopeful about it. I am excited. I listened last night. I stopped when a part of the layout didn’t fit easily together. I picked up what felt right. I went back and forth, pruning, twisting, loving, allowing.

More than anything, I feel I have matured in my ability to avoid letting unanswered questions – the general unfolding of life – make me feel unworthy or unable to get something done. It looks different than I thought it would at first, but the spirit is well hydrated. :)

If you feel like you are emotionally man-handled, I would love to know some of the ways you recognize when something or somebody is creeping into your world and loosening the threads. It’s a really common theme for a lot of people. You aren’t alone.

Trying noticing if silence helps you. Use the breath. Make some art.

Words in Sentences

Thanksgiving Rain Makes Me Freshly Thankful

by ErinLeave a Comment on Thanksgiving Rain Makes Me Freshly Thankful

When we got the tree yesterday, Thanksgiving Eve, the sky was so blue with marbled clouds and the sun was happy, warming the skin .

The girls were funny discerning shades of green, texture of branches, the shape. I smiled as Part One of this year’s book – A Christmas Tree Story – is about how Christmas Trees are chosen and at one point my oldest daughter yelled out to my youngest, “Didn’t you read mom’s book? No Christmas Tree is more perfect than another!” hahaha even now… the prose… making its way into my reality.

In my previous post, I mentioned how life has changed and for sure I thought that my reveal of how it changed was going to come in a poetic musing about taking the dogs out in the morning with both hands on my cup of coffee and being able to take in the morning sky because… drumroll… we have a new beautiful gorgeous life changing fence.

For two years, taking them out for relief in the morning has required putting them on leashes, dressing for the weather, and – most days – spinning around while they chase each other on the leashes while I try not to spill my coffee in my opposite hand.

The fence brings this ridiculous amount of freedom and nourishing relief. And though I did go out with them yesterday to take in the morning and though it certainly was life changing – here I am now on Thanksgiving, bringing my online diary to present alongside candlelight and rain.

Steady heavyish rain.

The poetic musing noting heavy themes of freedom when going outside is actually more deeply acknowledging the freedom and relief of staying inside, the knowing they can run out in the rain and I don’t have to… is as genuinely relieving as its opposite. I didn’t love the forecast of rain but here it is now, showing me a new part of my reality. My ability to stay in, reminding me of how life unfolds to teach us…

Smiling now. I think it is important to remember that not only does all hard and all work have its opposite if easy and relief, but that said opposites have opposites within (which then have opposites within, which then have opposites within).

This ongoing understanding life changes and unfolds both as we shift gears or make decisions but then also as those decisions and shifts change what is going on opens us up to mystery.

Who will ever sit and really – truly – figure out all the which ways something will turn and surprise us.

And if they do, is that present moment living?

The Little Red Hen in me feels charmed by her morning task becoming lighter here on Thanksgiving in a way different than I anticipated experiencing…

Now on to set out the turkey, turn the kitchen on and start the day…

The joy of finding the tree mixed with the work and not so much joy of it giving us hives