Who is not afraid of being overlooked, of being invisible in a world that demands stardom. “What do you do?” is standard repartee, the question most asked, the criterion upon which we judge our self-worth, how we value our accomplishments , and how we rate our success.
For the last 12 years, my answer has been, ” I teach yoga,” to which the questioners reply is usually, “Oh really, where?” And I say, “Midtown Yoga. It is my studio.”
“Wow, it is your studio. That’s great. I hear it is a great place.”
On January 1, 2013 my life will change. I will no longer be the owner/operator of Midtown Yoga. As I write and reflect on this transition I realize that, like my children, Midtown Yoga never really belonged to me. With the help of my husband, Jimmy, and many others, I opened the doors to Midtown Yoga on May 1, 200. Students came. They lined up at the door. Yoga was in the news. Christy Turlington was featured on the cover of Newsweek doing a yoga pose. Rodney Yee appeared on Oprah and two weeks later, came for a workshop at Midtown Yoga. We rode to success on the wings of a media frenzy.
Yes, I shepherded the space. I started selling retail. The first year we sponsored a teacher training program taught by Cyndi Lee of OM Yoga in New York and 27 people signed up, many of whom became longtime teachers at Midtown Yoga. I look back on these times with wonder and amazement. I had never before run a business and I did so then by the seat of my pants. I did not have a “business plan.” I made decisions based on my intuition and little else. For some reason, it worked.
I am so grateful to all those, teachers and students alike, who make Midtown Yoga what it is today, a living, breathing organism. My work at the studio is done. I will continue to teach and be a part of the community, a cog in the wheel, a leaf on the tree, a star in the sky, drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach, a snowflake in a beautiful blizzard a single note in a melodic song. I keep coming back to the Ben Lee lyric. “We are all in this together.”
Today I choose, in the words of Rolf Gates from Meditations on the Mat, “…to show up, burn brightly, live passionately, hold nothing back, and when the moment is over, when my work is done, I will step back and let go.”
The Four Immeasurables
May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May all beings be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May all beings never be parted from freedom’s true joy.
May all beings dwell in equanimity free from attachment and aversion.
Day 3 …I am writing my way back into the Light that is always and forever burning brightly in and around me and you.
Writing into the Light 