Becca Faith Yoga

So first things first: I love you all, but you kind-of fail at contests.  I’m keeping my mediocre blog-name until someone comes up with something excellent.  The only thing I’ve managed to think up = my secret Sanskrit name + a hackneyed play on a beloved HBO sitcom title.  No, I won’t tell you what it is and yes, I’m withholding as a display of my bitterness over the aforementioned contest fail.

It’s a gloomy day today in NYC, which affords me a chance to catch-up on my freelance editing work, which in turn affords me the opportunity to reflect on why I even have editing work to do in the first place.  Here’s the thing about being a yoga instructor:  it’s not something one does for the insta-cash.  Or the not-insta-cash.  Okay, it’s not something one does for cash, period.

If you’re like me, teaching yoga is something you do because you believe in the practice’s ability to transform suffering, and view teaching the practice as a way to live your Bodhisattva Vow.  Noble aspirations? Check. Money in the bank? [insert purposeful silence here].

Meaningful sidenote:  When I was younger, I spent countless hours in voice lessons and choral workshops, steadily preparing for my sure-to-be-imminent Broadway debut.  I never auditioned for community theatre, never worked backstage in school productions, and refused to take dance lessons.  I took up smoking, never practiced enough, and quit piano lessons.  But I kept dreaming. And guess where that got me?

Fucking nowhere.

Readers, I share this quaint anecdote because it’s time to cut through our delusions about dreaming. Dreams, passion, desire — it’s all totally worthless without hard work and the willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed.  Charging at life armed with nothing more than your super intentions and a smattering of passion is stupid and will get you exactly nowhere; charging at life armed with super intentions, passion, dedication to cultivating your craft, humility, determination, and an action plan might get you nowhere fast, but you’ll go somewhere.  Oh, you’ll go.

The very esteemed Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa often wrote about “spiritual materialism” or “spiritual shopping,” our pattern of drifting from belief system to belief system in order to find what makes us feel good instead of what really leads us to spiritual truth.  He taught that in order to gain insight and move toward enlightenment, you have to pick one boat and stick with it, no matter what.  If you want to discover new worlds, you can’t hug the shoreline and have one foot dragging in the water; you have to strap on a life vest, pack supplies, and paddle until your arms feel like old Jell-o Wigglers hanging at your sides.

Dreams are like that too, I think.

This is all to say that I hope you dream really, extraordinarily big — I really do.  But more than that, I hope you have the strength and support and adequate levels of crazy to doggedly pursue the thing that makes you feel alive.  Make a plan.  Do the plan.  Give ‘em hell, and take what’s yours: a dream dreamed, a reality earned.