Chakra Rainbow Salad with Ginger Sesame Dressing

“Let what you love occupy the center of your life.”

~ Anodea Judith

In my new life I get to surround myself by healers, therapists, yogis, teachers, creatives, designers; people who are consistently reaching deep into their soul. Literally, what I love is now the center of my life. How incredible is that?

In my previous life, for nearly 2 decades, I was surrounded by CEOs, by corporate mentality, by a complete lack of work-life balance. I knew for a long time that I wasn’t where I needed to be, I just never knew how to escape, how to make that jump, how to trust myself that I would be OK.

And I know now that I am with my tribe. I am right where I need to be. And before, I was right where I needed to be, too. I learned a lot in corporate America, a lot that I will never forget, and a lot that I would not have learned in this current life. For that, I am incredibly thankful.

Last weekend, I was able to spend three days with a tribe of beautiful, vulnerable, strong souls at a workshop led by Anodea Judith. Anodea is the guru of chakra therapy in the West. I’ve read many of her books, but never met her in person until last weekend, and she’s beyond incredible, loving, open, strong. We often think in North America that being strong means being powerful, stern, fierce. I’m realizing more and more that strong means none of those things. And actually, a lot of those things equal weakness.

• Opening up to strangers
• Being vulnerable
• Having the courage to share your story
• Accepting
• Not judging
• Leading with empathy
• Allowing yourself to dive deep into the places that scare you
• Figuring out who you are and who you were meant to be

Spending three days with this tribe of people who are as open and vulnerable as they are was beyond enlightening. I am so grateful for this life.

Vulnerability is power. Power also comes from breaking through, from discovering pieces of you that you didn’t know existed, or that you chose to overlook. I didn’t realize how many of those pieces that I’ve overlooked until now, how many I’ve hidden, buried, thrown aside, not realizing they were growing and creating more and more and more problems underneath the surface.

Seane Corn held a Charka workshop here in Fort Worth a few months back, and I wrote about that experience on this blog. I hated it, initially. I was mad at her. I didn’t get it. And then, poof – it made sense; it all snapped together.

These practices allow me to go deeper. Holding poses for very long periods of time allows your body to work through the shit that you’ve been covering up for decades. When your muscles start to shake, when you want out of the pose – that is when you need to stay in. That is when you allow yourself to uncover the parts of you that you need to reach.

The same thing happened this weekend with Anodea. Although I will say, Anodea’s teaching style is incredibly different than Seane’s. One is not better than the other. But I am very glad I went through both Seane’s and Anodea’s, and was awake enough to realize the same emotions coming out of me.

Anodea is like Mother Earth. She’s calm, exciting, loving, gentle, and lights up a room like no other. She’s truly alive, all-encompassing, the perfect archetype of a healer, and of a mother. She’s the perfect person to be around when you realize, oh holy shit, I have a ton of damage to work through.

And so that’s where I am. In a state of knowing full well what I’ve been covering up, knowing full well what I’ve been pushing aside, knowing full well what areas I need to work on. And it’s enlightening. It’s invigorating, awe-inspiring. It’s an opportunity to discover more, and to shape more, and to be awake. What an incredible opportunity.

So my message today, if you practice yoga regularly, do yourself a favor, and book the next workshops you can with these two. And be prepared to dive deep, to lose your mind a little, and to grow your heart a lot. Often in the yoga classes I teach, I’ll bring up how much nicer, calmer, more loving we are to family, friends, and strangers than we are to ourselves. These workshops will allow you to uncover those area that you’re hiding from, and they’ll allow you to heal, to love yourself greater, and to love the community who raised you – parents, teachers, friends, family, siblings – in a greater way. Because no one’s perfect and the community who raised us has so much shit they were dealt, so much so that it’s impossible for us children to fully realize. And we all know that, on a visceral level. These workshops will allow you to embody that, to come closer, to look deeper, to accept and forgive and heal. To give yourself as much love as you give to others.

I hope you give them a try.