Yea, my hair's pretty oily

I had an amazing massage today with loads of oil. It was an ayurvedic massage that was supposed to be among other things, good for my brain. I'll let you know. I'm at Kripalu for a couple of days and my old roommate still works here and she gave me this amazing treatment.

We're heading into our first night this evening and I'm sitting in the cafe area reading my email when one of the students from the current Yoga Teacher Training program happening in Ottawa is sitting right across from me! The yoga world is so small.

It's nice being here in many ways. As a past resident I get to come and stay for a few days for nothing every year. I don't always take advantage of that, but this year I got lucky and the availability I had matched up with theirs.

Workshop at Omega (Mother-Daughter Yoga)

Can I tell you how excited I am that I get to lead a weekend workshop with my daughter next year at Omega? I'm very excited. When I was at Omega a couple of weeks ago being the yoga teacher on staff, I had a conversation with someone on the core staff about possibly leading a weekend workshop next summer. (There's a big difference between being the staff yoga teacher and being faculty - to me - at Omega. Faculty get nicer housing and have a special dining room, for instance!)

Anyway, when we were talking about it I found myself feeling excited like if that could happen, that would be so great. I mentioned to a few people that I was in conversation about leading a catalogue workshop but I didn't want to get my hopes up too high because way more people apply to lead courses there than actually get to. I practised non-attachment. (Right.) So when I heard back from Jim yesterday, I lit up! Yay!

There's no need to ask me what I did to get the job or what my proposal looked like and all of that because it's only due to my connections there that I had the conversation at all. It's definitely "who you know" in this case! And "who(m) do you love?" Right, Jim? And maaayyybbee there's been some positive feedback about the classes I've led over the past couple of years and maaayyybbeee my cute daughter's bubbly personality won hearts and we would have gotten the gig anyways, but I doubt it.

Stories that Heal

It turns out that it's really helpful for me to hear stories of other peoples' break ups and their recovery while I'm going through this time. When people share that they've been through this as well and are on the other side of it, it just reminds me that I'm going to be fine, which I don't really forget, but it's still helpful to hear.

It reminds me of when I was pregnant - I loved listening to other peoples' birth stories. I still love hearing about it. I loved hearing all of the details.

These stories all tend to be victorious at the end. The babies made it, the lovers survive. Survive and go on to thrive, actually. Those are the stories I'm hearing lately. I hear about how that break up although it was hard, was key to that person moving forward and that they did move forward. I don't hear about people backsliding - they tend to do better. The next one is better. Something that Swami Kripalu said is that yoga is anything that makes you thrive. Hmm. I knew this was yoga!

In the end, there's a big loss in all relationships as eventually somebody dies. Actually, we all do. But along the way we grow stronger and more aware and able to handle loss.

I have been a particularly bad sport about this one. I'm really bummed and not holding my head up and figuring I'll do better next time. I'm a sore loser. I'll see if I can't just turn that frown upside down :) very soon, but for the moment, I'm still in the dumps. Maybe the proximity to Valentines Day adds to the drama. It was our anniversary. Boohoo.

So thanks to the people coming to help me out with their break up stories. It reminds me of my humanness - I've been wanting so bad to transcend this and just feel better, but the truth is it sucks, it's sore, it hurts, and it is on the mend. So if you've got a good break up story, bring it on. I'm all ears.