Your best life isn’t as simple as it seems. Best life isn’t necessarily your favorite life or the one you selfishly want. It’s simply the life you’re best at.
I read that a year ago in a book called, The Bucolic Plague. It’s a book about the Beekman brothers and their transition from corporate life to farming. I don’t think I understood that message completely until tonight when I was driving home from work. It repeated in my head like a mantra, “It’s simply the life you are best at.”
I’ve been playing around with “what to do with my life” for a couple of years now. I’ve had a myriad of jobs. I’ve learned a lot from these jobs, but never felt like I was fulfilled by them. I recently applied for a job, one that I could picture myself going to everyday. It seemed to fit the bill! I could wear a suit! I could be Alicia from The Good Wife! Yes! I screamed in the car!” This is it!” Until…the phone didn’t ring. Feelings of inadequacy hit me like a ton of bricks; it’s the life I want. I kept questioning myself why didn’t it work out? Was I too experienced for no experience? ” No”, said the universe. This is not the best life for you.
There have been several things that have been constant in my life: Yoga, teaching, and spirituality. I have taught everything from cooking classes to healing classes. I’ve taught young and old. Teaching is something that I’ve always done. It is my “best life”.
I took my first Yoga class back in college. I really needed that “A”. I got a lot more than an “A”. I got a lifetime relationship with Yoga. I don’t mean just the physical practice of Yoga, but the spirituality of Yoga. The Yoga that really forces you to look at yourself. Yoga has been there for me. During a particularly difficult time in my life, I was going to a Sunday night study of The Yoga Sutras. One of my fellow Yogis came up and just hugged me without saying much other than ” You looked like you needed it.” Yoga; its friendship, it is personal growth, and exercise, these are a bonus, to me. Yoga allows me to go deep into myself. Quiet the mind become calm and realize the truth. Truth is not always what we want to hear. We dodge the truth like bullets.
I decided to say, “Yes to the universe!” Yesterday, I taught a children’s’ Yoga class. The littlest girl came up to me and said, ” I love yoga.” I knew at that moment that I had made the right choice. This particular child is the quietest, most reserved child in the group, but she was there doing her downward dog and loving it. I am committing to blogging, teaching and promoting the children’s yoga business. Every day, I am going to commit to treating the children’s yoga as a business. Maybe there’s something for me to learn.
Teaching and Yoga are the life that is best for me. What’s your best life? Can you step out of your comfort zone? When we step out of the comfortable and into the uncomfortable we allow for change to take place inside ourselves. We stop controlling.
Stepping out of the comfort zone doesn’t have to mean a career change. It means allowing yourself to be uncomfortable. It can be anything that will allow for personal growth.
What will happen when you say yes to the universe and allow for possibilities?