it's t-minus 21 hours before i have to start getting ready for the 4:00pm saturday afternoon bikram yoga class. i haven't gone to more than a handful of classes since august. it's now late april. i expect to be lying in savasanah (corpse pose) a. whole. lot.
i've got to start somewhere. i'm currently 40 years old, more than 40 lbs overweight, alone, and not doing what i really want to do with my life--or rather not being what i really want to be.
i get paid to be a psychiatric nurse-practitioner. not a bad job, all in all. it's secure. interesting. i enjoy the people with whom i work--both patients and staff. and it brings home the bacon. and eggs. i've been very fortunate to have had access to the educational path and opportunities that made having such a job possible. i won't say it's not hard work. but i fully recognize that 8 hours hauling buckets of cement, or pouring D&D coffee after coffee and bagging doughnut after doughnut, is not easy work either. and seeing as i had the choice among the three, i'm grateful for the having of it. also, being on my own, seeing how it does bring home the benjamins, i'm fairly stuck with said choice, to some degree. still, my aspirations extend beyond doling out empathy and legal drugs.
what do i really want to be.
i want to be a beacon of kindness.
yup. that's right. i don't really care about what i do, so much as what i am. and one thing i've noticed, most of the bikram yoga teachers i've met and admired--they're practically beatific. they radiate kindness. seriously. there are not many things i'm certain of in this world. i mean besides change and impermanence and the singular ownership of my social security number. pretty much the only other thing of which i'm fully certain is that, more than truth, more than wisdom, more than any other quality or virtue or action, kindness always prevails. it is never in the wrong. too often, i let things get in the way of choosing kindness. passions. ambitions. ego. justice. insecurities. frustrations. indulgences. hurt. i've let them all take top billing at one time or another.
this is my journey to becoming a bikram yoga teacher. and hopefully, to prioritizing kindness as a way of being. this is my journey to caring and attending to more about how i am than what i do.
so in addition to saving money for tuition, i must spend the next six months reestablishing a regular, regimented bikram yoga practice. one must have at least 6 months of consistent practice to meet the first requirement for attending bikram yoga teacher training school. it's going to be a challenge--not merely because, at the moment, i'm one big lazy jabba-the-hut blob, but also because my work schedule is less than compatible with scheduled classes; still, anything worth having has its price. or so i've been told.
namaste.
