It is already November and as the days seem to pass so quickly, I find myself searching out time, whether it be 5 minutes or 5 hours, to enjoy the fall. I flew to San Francisco over the past weekend to spend time with one of my best friends from college and to see one of my yoga teachers. It was a wonderful weekend, but an eye-opening one as well. When everyone gets busy in life, it gets more difficult to carve time for everything you want to do, but at different points life creates certain opportunities for us to slow down. When we get the chance to take time out and to reconnect, I think it is such a wonderful thing-- almost a magical one really, but it can also make you realize the passage of time. It can show us how things change, people change and perhaps you change. I hope that in some way as we get older we all become a little bit more of who we've always been. As we grow up and stop trying to please everyone, or be someone who we think we "should" be, I hope we come closer to ourselves. On Sunday, the last day of the workshop I had been in, my teacher started talking about something that both my mom and I had the same conversation about prior to the workshop. He said that our shakti, agni... that fire part of us, that soul part of us is always waiting for us, and my mom had said the very same thing to me just a few days before. They both were saying how we don't go looking for our soul, but that our soul is actually waiting for us, waiting for us to wake up to it, to listen to it, to realize it, feel it and follow it. I thought that was such an incredible thing to say and a wonderful way to view it. It's not about looking for something, it's about waking up to what already exists. It's waking up to everything we are, to who we are and to who we've always been and are meant to become. I feel so thankful to the practice of yoga, to all of my teachers, my incredible parents and brother, because they have always in some way been the ones who silently and gently shook my soul. As I sit here writing this, I can't help but feel very grateful to all the people, places and practices who in some way helped to wake me back up to myself. I am so thankful for my friend who lives in SF, for all the times she was there for me, especially in college and even though we don't see each other very much now and are very far away, I am so blessed for the times we have spent together. It is funny how life unfolds.... and as one of my teachers always says to me, be in the adventure, stay in it and let it take you where it may. I think the adventure is all about following our soul. We have no idea where it will take us, but if we have the courage to have faith and follow it, I believe it will lead us on the trip of a lifetime and you don't have to worry about losing yourself, because you already have everything you need.
So go. Adventure. Ask for you what you want and don't go back to sleep. :)
