The end of 2016 is approaching and change is afoot. Once more I am taking a detour on life's path and will be starting a new job in January which means I will need to change how and when I teach yoga. I'll be keeping my early morning class and private clients in the evenings, but won't be able to do my other group classes as I'll be working as (wait for it) a Library Assistant at the local school. Didn't see that one coming did you? Well neither did I, but the job came up, I enjoy working in the school and as my plans for the next few years have developed in terms of where I want to take my life next, I have realised that in order to get where I want to go I need to make some changes. This latest adventure should give me the opportunity to do that in a way that fits with regular family life whilst giving me a steady income and routine and it felt like the right thing to do at the right time. It has come with much angst though. Am I doing the right thing? Am I heading in the right direction? I've come so far, am I throwing it all away? How will I keep up my teaching and practice? I don't know the answers to all those questions yet but I am willing to give it a try.
I'm certainly not walking away from yoga entirely. It's a means to an end and I'm busy planning retreats, regular weekend workshops and short courses to keep my teaching hours up and myself inspired. Maybe I'll even get the chance to do some yoga and mindfulness sessions with the kids, or better yet, the teachers!
I do, however, frequently laugh at myself and feel like I must look like a complete lunatic to most right-thinking individuals. My life so far has gone off on all sorts of crazy wonderful tangents and lead me to meet some pretty amazing people and learn some valuable lessons along the way.
My brother jokes that has never known someone who changes their hairstyle more often, and my husband frequently despairs at my seemingly random choices. It got me thinking about the women I admire, both through personal acquaintance and in the public eye, and how often what I love about them is the way they seem to have fearlessly changed direction in their lives in pursuit of their art or their dreams. It's why stars like Beyonce, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and even Victoria Beckham continue to capture the public's attention. They are not afraid to try something new, be it in fashion, music, career or relationships and constantly reinvent themselves. We find ourselves drawn to their stories, outfits, haircuts and relationship disasters because we recognise something of ourselves in them.
Biologically and socially women are built (or perhaps conditioned) to live this way - we have to constantly change and adapt to the roles we find ourselves in either by choice, accident or necessity as we move from daughters to students, girlfriends, wives, career women, mothers, grandmothers etc etc. We are master chameleons, but the changes are not always easy. The transition to motherhood (even if you keep the career bit) is often particularly difficult. One day it seems you are writing essays on Shakespeare or typing up a lab report, the next you are earning good money in a shiny office, wearing nice clothes and shoes, having 'adult' conversations, being taken seriously, presenting your ideas in a boardroom, stopping for a cocktail on the way home with friends, eating in nice restaurants. Then, boom, suddenly you find yourself smelling slightly of baby sick, spelling your name phonetically to the nice person at the bank, pointing out trains and swans to random strangers in the street, being able to clean up anything with a packet of wet wipes, constantly forgetting PE kits and counting the days until it is socially acceptable to give your child fish fingers and chips for tea again. What happened? How can I be both of these people? Why am I doing a terrible job at trying to still be both of these people at once? What shall I do next? These are the questions I at least asked myself and I don't think I am alone.
The female role models in my life that I aspire to be like have all been seemingly unafraid to change direction. There is my Mum who stayed at home to look after me and my brother whilst Dad was pursuing his naval career, then started at the bottom and retrained when I went to secondary school to get her degree and become a housing manager. There is an Employment lawyer who left her high powered corporate job and now runs her own international etiquette training business for luxury brands and sings in a rock choir. A single mother who found her way back from a traumatic childhood, failed marriage and many hard years of financial difficulty and false starts to become a midwife. A divorcee who moved back to New Zealand after the breakdown of her marriage to a gold miner, set up then sold a successful chocolatier business and then invested her money in travel and renovating a former hospital into a beautiful retreat by the sea. A beauty sales advisor who raised her daughter alone, moved to Italy, returned and worked as a school receptionist then as a PA before moving into business development and has spent the last few years steadily building her own business selling her collection of vintage items and beautiful handmade bags. A friend who has built a successful, hilarious blog chronicling the more 'realistic' view of being a slightly slummy, yummy Mummy. I could go on and on, and I haven't even got to the civil engineers, former drug addicts, circus performers, lawyers, Tiger Mum's, beauticians, aerobics Queens, accountants, bank managers and general bunch of social misfits I know who have become yoga teachers and continually inspire me with their life stories, whilst now helping others navigate their way through their own journeys.
In summary, our lives as women constantly change and we do our best to balance following our head, heart and instincts to make the right decisions whilst trying to enjoy the journey. I may never get to make that final metamorphosis into the butterfly I envision, but at the moment I am quite happy using the life I have been given to wander around like the Enormous Caterpillar, trying all the different yummy foods on offer, confident in the knowledge that I have at least got the potential inside me to make that leap. It might just have to wait until the next life. So I say, take the piano lesson, learn how to make a decent souffle, speak Portuguese, move abroad, climb a mountain, write your novel. Do what you need to do to stay true to yourself and don't get downhearted by life's never ending sidetracks. Instead embrace the traditional woman's prerogative to change her mind and use it to your advantage. Life is too short to do otherwise and we are lucky enough to live in a society where we can, so let's make the most of it.
I'm certainly not walking away from yoga entirely. It's a means to an end and I'm busy planning retreats, regular weekend workshops and short courses to keep my teaching hours up and myself inspired. Maybe I'll even get the chance to do some yoga and mindfulness sessions with the kids, or better yet, the teachers!
I do, however, frequently laugh at myself and feel like I must look like a complete lunatic to most right-thinking individuals. My life so far has gone off on all sorts of crazy wonderful tangents and lead me to meet some pretty amazing people and learn some valuable lessons along the way.
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| My life in pictorial form! |
My brother jokes that has never known someone who changes their hairstyle more often, and my husband frequently despairs at my seemingly random choices. It got me thinking about the women I admire, both through personal acquaintance and in the public eye, and how often what I love about them is the way they seem to have fearlessly changed direction in their lives in pursuit of their art or their dreams. It's why stars like Beyonce, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and even Victoria Beckham continue to capture the public's attention. They are not afraid to try something new, be it in fashion, music, career or relationships and constantly reinvent themselves. We find ourselves drawn to their stories, outfits, haircuts and relationship disasters because we recognise something of ourselves in them.
Biologically and socially women are built (or perhaps conditioned) to live this way - we have to constantly change and adapt to the roles we find ourselves in either by choice, accident or necessity as we move from daughters to students, girlfriends, wives, career women, mothers, grandmothers etc etc. We are master chameleons, but the changes are not always easy. The transition to motherhood (even if you keep the career bit) is often particularly difficult. One day it seems you are writing essays on Shakespeare or typing up a lab report, the next you are earning good money in a shiny office, wearing nice clothes and shoes, having 'adult' conversations, being taken seriously, presenting your ideas in a boardroom, stopping for a cocktail on the way home with friends, eating in nice restaurants. Then, boom, suddenly you find yourself smelling slightly of baby sick, spelling your name phonetically to the nice person at the bank, pointing out trains and swans to random strangers in the street, being able to clean up anything with a packet of wet wipes, constantly forgetting PE kits and counting the days until it is socially acceptable to give your child fish fingers and chips for tea again. What happened? How can I be both of these people? Why am I doing a terrible job at trying to still be both of these people at once? What shall I do next? These are the questions I at least asked myself and I don't think I am alone.
The female role models in my life that I aspire to be like have all been seemingly unafraid to change direction. There is my Mum who stayed at home to look after me and my brother whilst Dad was pursuing his naval career, then started at the bottom and retrained when I went to secondary school to get her degree and become a housing manager. There is an Employment lawyer who left her high powered corporate job and now runs her own international etiquette training business for luxury brands and sings in a rock choir. A single mother who found her way back from a traumatic childhood, failed marriage and many hard years of financial difficulty and false starts to become a midwife. A divorcee who moved back to New Zealand after the breakdown of her marriage to a gold miner, set up then sold a successful chocolatier business and then invested her money in travel and renovating a former hospital into a beautiful retreat by the sea. A beauty sales advisor who raised her daughter alone, moved to Italy, returned and worked as a school receptionist then as a PA before moving into business development and has spent the last few years steadily building her own business selling her collection of vintage items and beautiful handmade bags. A friend who has built a successful, hilarious blog chronicling the more 'realistic' view of being a slightly slummy, yummy Mummy. I could go on and on, and I haven't even got to the civil engineers, former drug addicts, circus performers, lawyers, Tiger Mum's, beauticians, aerobics Queens, accountants, bank managers and general bunch of social misfits I know who have become yoga teachers and continually inspire me with their life stories, whilst now helping others navigate their way through their own journeys.
In summary, our lives as women constantly change and we do our best to balance following our head, heart and instincts to make the right decisions whilst trying to enjoy the journey. I may never get to make that final metamorphosis into the butterfly I envision, but at the moment I am quite happy using the life I have been given to wander around like the Enormous Caterpillar, trying all the different yummy foods on offer, confident in the knowledge that I have at least got the potential inside me to make that leap. It might just have to wait until the next life. So I say, take the piano lesson, learn how to make a decent souffle, speak Portuguese, move abroad, climb a mountain, write your novel. Do what you need to do to stay true to yourself and don't get downhearted by life's never ending sidetracks. Instead embrace the traditional woman's prerogative to change her mind and use it to your advantage. Life is too short to do otherwise and we are lucky enough to live in a society where we can, so let's make the most of it.
