Destination Elation

In our final two weeks of yoga teacher training, we have to write a self-reflection. Here’s mine.

As our yoga teacher training winds down, I recognize more starkly than when I started just how much I DON’T know. It reminds me of a long time ago when I studied martial arts. When I passed my black belt test, my teacher said to me, now you are at the beginning of your journey. Now you are ready to learn. 

If I think too hard about this, it becomes neverending. There is always more to learn, more connections to make, more epiphanies to have and frankly to re-have when we forget. There are more texts, more teachers, more teachings. In Chapter 12 of the Baghavad Gita, the way of love, Krishna says: “Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.”

I’m working on the meditation, but not having attachment to results is difficult. How does one set goals without attaching themselves to results? I remember when I was in my twenties, I ran my first marathon. Prior to this, I wore a lot of black, drank too much, smoked cigarettes and hung out in coffeeshops being existential without too much actual deep thought. When I signed up for the marathon, people were a little shocked. I remember signing up, downloading a Runners World training plan from the internet and going to the bathroom to symbolically drown a pack of cigarettes. And then I began. The race was in Milwaukee and my friend Liz, who’d been a runner in college, decided she’d start it with me, run until she got tired and drop out. She was a good friend. 

We left our belongings at the finish line and then got on a bus to take us to the start. When the bus got on the highway, my stomach dropped. To me, highways signified a long journey. HOW FAR HAD I SIGNED UP TO RUN!? This was nuts. Liz smiled at me and said, “You’ve got this, Amy, this was never about the race, this was about the journey you took already, the one to get you here. This race, it’s just a party, it’s a celebration of all that you’ve learned, all you’ve done, all the changes you’ve made.”

Sometimes I lose this memory in this thing called life, this goal-setting, individual achievement, ego-driven thing where we are set up to see ourselves as other than, different from, unique to. I finished the race, foot drenched in blood, body caked in salt, more exhausted and grateful to be alive than I can maybe ever remember being. And there was a point in the race when I remember no thought other than, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. 

Detaching from outcomes is a struggle for me. But in running that race, there was something pure in the celebration of body, spirit and beyond. The gratitude and love for just being able to do it, for being alive and all that entails. 

I find myself in Madison, WI, in yoga teacher training after struggling for many years with who am I, what does it all mean, who am I supposed to be. The problem is that throughout my life, the voices of others have often been stronger or louder than my own. And it’s not even that I haven’t heard myself, haven’t known what’s right and what’s wrong for me, it’s that I haven’t trusted myself. Others must know better. Look at them. But of course. And sometimes it’s not others telling you what to do or how to be in the world, it’s the messages we receive about how people should be generally.  

When I signed up for yoga teacher training, I told myself it was about deepening this practice that had finally helped my body feel good again. Long story short, marathons ended for me after a mystery injury that no doctor I’d ever been to could figure it out. I’m not running marathons again, but I can once again find joy in running, peace in one foot in front of the other, without the constant awareness that something is wrong in my body – and maybe that something is wrong in more than just my body.

But at the same time, I’d been exploring religion and faith. I’d started going to a progressive church and struck up a close friendship with a pastor who was helping me see scripture in ways that made sense to me. 

The work we do in Ajna and Sahasrara chakras poses the question of what we need to release, what we need to nurture to live our purpose and how do we feel disconnected from God. This is the work I’ve been doing this year, this is the work that I realize actually led me to yoga – and to church – and to many other changes. And this is the work I will continue to do – probably for the rest of my life. 

I don’t think there is an end destination, but rather a continuous journey and a celebration of steps along the journey, this being one of those steps. The attachment to outcomes is one of those things that has kept me fearful, disconnected, and on paths that are close, but not quite right for me, for what I think I’m supposed to be doing in the world. As yoga would say, my dharma. 

It is hard not to invest your ego in outcomes. This is likely to be a lifelong process for me, but I think it’s what I must work on moving forward.