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So I am in the ocean at Galveston yesterday and Bill had to run to the facilities for a minute leaving me alone with both kids.
The water was warm. The sand was soft and sucking on our toes as the water pushed and retreated. There were birds wheeling overhead or diving into the surf to catch a snack.
Benji was toddling around and pointing to the ocean and saying ‘Pooo!’ which means, pool. Because everything is a pool. Creeks, rivers, lakes, puddles. Everything is a pool. At least, I hope so. Poo also means, well, poo.
In any case, Ellie was laughing and throwing mud into the ocean. I don’t know why. But try it. It is kind of fun. Just don’t get any in your mouth. Yuck.
And then something crazy happened. I looked around, lots of people around but no one is paying attention to us because they have their own crazy kids to watch carefully.
I dropped in the shallow water and did a Vinyasa flow. I started in Cobra which is backwards but who cares. Pushed back into Down Dog. Benji laughed at me, my head upside down and he bent down and put his head in the wet sand. A toddler down dog. He has never done that before. I think he sensed my joy, my playful heart.
Then I shifted to mountain, scooping my arms up and wide, my heart open to the sun and the surf and the sand. Then down to touch my toes, half bend, then back down to plank and cobra, (spit out sand) finish up in Up-Dog.
Then I did a few of my favorite poses, Wild Thing, sitting back bend and then I came up and just sat in Rock Pose, watching my kids. I know what you’re thinking. But people might be WATCHING you. And JUDGING you. Maybe they think you’re a crazy yoga lady!
And I have to say, yeah, maybe. But in that moment there was such profound contentment and peace that I’d rather have that, then the good opinion of people I will never see again and to whom I may not like even if I did meet them again.
I’ve been reading ‘Success Principles’ by Jack Canfield about how to be successful and how to figure out how to make money doing things you love to do. I think the theory is, you were made with a purpose and each time your heart leaps with joy, or bliss, that’s because that’s the way you were made. And you were made to follow that wherever it goes. And trust that because that’s how you were made, that’s how you are going to be taken care of. Somehow, in some form, you will find success.
Wow, right?
So, I am going to trust that God put these desires in my heart; to write, to uplift my heart and steady my body in a yoga flow, to teach that joy to others, to fill my heart with everything that makes me happy. Loving on my kids, tending to my garden, and to follow every spark and event that arouses my curiosity.
I am going to trust that I am who I am for a reason, and that alignment will happen at some time frame that is not my own.
I don’t know if I will ever be a full time yoga teacher, or make any money from my writing or if loving to grow things could be lucrative. No one is paying me to love every kid I come across whether I spend three minutes with them or a few years.
But I have to trust that in following these desires I will find both a way to make a living and a way to stay in my ‘happy’ place. Maybe I will find my place as an admin assistant in a yoga studio, or as an editor instead of a writer, or a school counselor or a million other ways and jobs I won’t even know exist until I start following those paths.
I will follow bliss, I will let go, and I will be grateful for what I have right now. My totally chaotic and imperfect life is filled with millions of small, perfect moments and I won’t stop searching for more. Life’s too short, eh?
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
–Joseph Campbell
Angela Yeh - Fantasy Author. Dragon Enthusiast. Optimist. 