What an awesome birthday! Fellow yogis hugging me before and after classes, workshops and breathing sessions, yummy food, sunshine, new opportunities for teaching … I walked around all day with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for both myself and the Ocean Yoga Festival.
For those not breathlessly following along (kidding!), I had been living and teaching yoga in the small, beachfront town of Amed on Bali for a week when I stumbled upon a collective of groovy people getting together for a free yoga festival just 10 kilometers up the road, and during the week of my birthday, no less. So I was feeling pretty blessed from the start of the festival on Monday. But today was, shall we say, icing on the cake.
A good group of participants in a life coaching course led by Eline. Thanks, sister, for the great encouragement!
I woke up to a sweet note from my boyfriend, who surprised me with tickets to a big folk music festival in Australia. He’s currently reading The Fest Life Guide, so he’ll be a wise and ready for festival fun by the time we roll in with our tiny home in December. Happily, I ordered kue dadar pisang for breakfast. This is a traditional pancake rolled around a banana and covered in brown sugar and coconut, and it is delicious. Topped off with some strong Bali coffee, my happy belly and I scooted over to my first yoga class of the day.
“I hope you don’t mind, but this is going to be a chakra-themed yin class,” the teacher announced, bracing herself for backlash. Instead, I couldn’t help but clap my hands together excitedly. I love all of those things! Since I was the last to arrive, my mat was set up front and center; my joy was thus the de facto opinion of the rest of the class. Of course, as a Reiki master, I knew a lot about chakras anyway; but the yin felt so great. I could tell I had been caring for my body.
My notes at the bottom of my life coaching worksheet. BOOM!
Feeling stretched and blissed out, I enjoyed a jamu at Life In Amed while chatting with my parents, who kindly stayed up late for the 12-hour time difference. Then I was off to Hidden Paradise for a life coaching course. There, we paired up and talked about our goals for the year and how we were setting about to overcome any obstacles in our path. Well, I was on track here, too. I’ve got a plan that includes working toward my holistic health, creating more streams for passive income, focusing on love and ensuring more travel and adventures throughout the globe. And I’ve been actively working to create an infrastructure to make it happen. I felt really ahead of the game. My workshop partner suggested I find ways to create milestones, so I could see my success. It was a great idea.
Over to Blue Earth, I caught up with some new friends, ordered a tropical tempeh salad and participated in a Transformative Breathwork session. This involved the group lying down with our heads toward the center as we all breathed deeply through our mouths as the facilitators played djembes and random percussion and sang a tribal-type of scat vocals. All around me, people were breaking into serious, deep-seated sobs. How great that they were able to let go of some of that hurt they were holding on to. And then I realized: I’m so good emotionally, too.
Some of the percussion “tools” the facilitators used to get people to feel their emotions through breath. It made me really miss my djembe and my old percussion instruments!
I am a big “feeler of my feelings.” I don’t particularly care if they’re weird or socially awkward. I easily express my emotions because that way, they don’t own me. When I feel sadness bubbling up, I actually say out loud, “Oh, I feel some sadness bubbling up.” And then I cry. And then I move on. I did this exact thing two weeks ago. It feels good to cry when you have to. So, when I heard my fellow workshop participants finally giving themselves permission to feel what’s really going on down there, I deeply recognized and honored all the work I’ve done on myself over this last year.
Oh yes! AND I got to pet a kitty today. Best birthday ever.
This workshop – this festival – was exactly the milestone I needed. When I was teaching SUP Yoga yesterday (two more classes have been added over the weekend!), it was so wonderful to hear how the students appreciated my teachings – lessons I learned from years of study and experience. I am doing the work, and I am seeing the fruits of that labor. That knowledge is one of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever received!
Of course, there’s still a long way to go … and two more days of the Ocean Yoga Festival. I sure hope my laundry is done in time for tomorrow’s 8 a.m. Vinyasa Masterclass! I have to work off that kue dadar pisang somehow ….