Only know you love her when you let her go

Kasi and her hubs, Cliff

"...Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
...Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go
so you let her go."  

- Passenger 

It's been too long since I've written anything that wasn't involved with Yoga teacher training. I can't believe I've finished up my Yoga anatomy workshop and getting ready to head into my 6th month of training!  

*update: It's now MAY, and I'm DONE with Yoga teacher training classes.  This post has been in draft mode for several months!

Our last class!  the satsung, at Sally's house

Honestly, though, I haven't had the heart to blog here for many months. (and obviously, a few more months after that!)

Everyone needs time to grieve.  I know that my journey through cancer will never really end, as long as there are still people living with and dying from it. The best I can do is try to honor the ones that have passed by living my life on my own terms.  This is a hard thing for me.  I want and have wanted my life to be so many different things, that I've often become paralyzed from doing anything.  Fight, fly or freeze is the stress response.  My MO is usually to fly or freeze.  

Totally frozen Great Lakes, a first for many, many years!

Juan walks on water @ Lake Michigan,
 Holland State Park

And with the polar vortex winter we had, that is also a literal thing! We had a record winter for cold temperatures.  Payback for the last several mild winters.  Michigan pulled out all the stops for our exchange student, Juan, who is used to a Mediterranean climate.  He is taking it in stride.  He told me after several typical Michigan cloudy days that he finally understands the line about missing the sun in "Let Her Go".  

Lucky for me, I constantly get pushed outside of my normal reaction of freezing in times of stress by the movement of yoga.  And now it's required because I've doing my Yoga Teacher Training, since September.  I can't say that I've been super great in my physical practice during training; I had several months of illnesses and injuries that kept me from doing much at all.  But, as I came to realize during my cancer recovery, Yoga isn't always and only about the asana, or physical practice.  It's in the mind, too.  

I've been lucky enough to be allowed to teach a class in a real yoga studio, while I finish up my certification, which will probably take me most of the next year, working full time at the state, and teaching yoga part time.

Teaching Yoga has allowed me to practice stilling my mind in order to lead others in the stilling of theirs.  For me, it is still hard not to let my brain go to the chaos, but I'm sloooowly working on it.  One second at a time.

Namaste.
Om Shanti Shanti