Exiting the Cocoon

 Last weekend marked a very important and personal milestone in my life.  I graduated from my 200-hour yoga teacher training as a certified yoga teacher.  For the past two and a half months we met online and as a group, or kula, we explored, learned, shared and grew as we embarked on the journey of yoga.  I had been someone who practiced yoga on and off over the years, but until this point had never really understood just how deep and vast the practice of yoga could be.  

In the time that passed between our training weekends I found myself feeling a mix of emotions, and experiencing a swirl of thoughts and ideas.  There was definitely a lot taking place below the surface, building on work that I had been doing on myself leading up to this point in my life.  It felt like a much deeper exploration of who I am, where I have been and more importantly where I want to go.  What my true dharma or life's work is that I am meant to pursue and the realization that these 200 hours were about so much more than yoga poses.  

I leaned in hard, that is to say that I pushed past my comfort level and brought my entire self to these weekends.  I put my hand up and volunteered thoughts and ideas and participated more fully in these sessions than at any other point in my life.  Despite the voice in my head telling me that no one wanted or needed to hear this much from me, and that the others were likely tired of my constant sharing.  At one point, to put these stories to rest, I told the others during a share how I was feeling about being so active in our discussions.  The fear that I had around their acceptance of me and my thoughts.  And instead of being outcast, I was embraced.  I felt my true self being accepted instead of criticized, appreciated instead of overlooked.  That tender little girl inside of me felt safe and welcomed and able to just be herself.  

Our last weekend together was an emotional one for a few reasons.  We knew that our kula was getting ready to go out into the world and do our work and the formal gatherings that we had become so used to would be changing in nature.  We all had the ability to bring our gifts of yoga to each other and share a beautiful class experience during our yoga festival and finally our graduation ceremony which provided an opportunity to celebrate all we had accomplished.

During our final practice of the weekend we moved into a restorative pose called Reclined Butterfly.  It is a heart and hip-opening pose and little did I know how much I needed it.  As I found my way into this lovely and supported position, I could feel tears welling up inside of me and before I knew it, I was openly crying.  Not just a few Hollywood tears, either.  Big, gigantic, body-wracking sobs.  Loud and messy, and maybe to an onlooker even an "ugly cry".  But to me, it was beautiful.  This was my way of exiting the cocoon that I had been living in.  Finally unlocking the jagged pieces of hurt and sadness that I had been holding onto for so long.  A release of all that I had been carrying with me that I no longer needed and did not want to bring with me as I moved forward.  The interesting thing is that there was no feeling of sadness attached to these tears.  The feelings I noticed instead were peace and gratitude.  A lovely sense of inner peace at letting this go and gratitude towards myself for all the work it took in order to finally feel safe to let go.  

As the tears subsided and a sense of completeness wrapped around me, I knew that I was really ready to spread my new wings and start to soar.  That this was the moment I had been working towards and from here the sky is the limit.  

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