From the deepest part of myself, and for reasons I had to blog about to be able to understand just why I feel compelled to write to you about this.. My inherent hope is that I talk to you and reach you from a place below your head.. From the place Africa NEEDS a response , from the heart... I hope to get you to FEEL for these young people, FEEL for the place they started , feel MORE for where they are going.. and spark awe and accomplishment and humble pride in YOUR OWN JOURNEY, whereever it takes you! May your heart's flame ignite and suppport the torch that alchemists , Paige, Baron, Moses and a whole global yoga famdamily in Kenya have sparked for the people in Africa to find within, come alive, come into their own knowing and EMPOWER themselves so that Africa too can REclaim her power!
From the first day, I sat down at my kitchen table and began watching the documentaries Baron portrayed on AYP, I was immediately struck by the struggle, the poverty , the updogs done in the dirt, the stories of how challenged Africa has been... to say the VERY least.. We all know this, but we do not know anything until we have had it explained to us by those LIVING THERE.
Underneath my tears for that, my heart broke wide open, but underneath the empathy, it touched into something else.. AWE! Awe for the RAW truth of how their lives were written for them right up until yoga found them.
Awe for the HUMANITY, and the HUMILITY... yet, underneath that even was simply Awesome space for JOY.... which empowers a Mickey Mouse club of people practicing hot yoga in REAL heat, and yeah, in the slums, yet they don't seem to notice the conditions. Yoga's power NEVER lost on me is its magic to take ME over, YOu over in a way that you never even notice it being done.. To give up playing God, you get to get surrender and LOSE YOUR LIFE..
Getting lost in the powerful flow of movement and breath gets you to rise UP and OUT and OVER your story, yourself, your lack...your pitying yourself, shaming, criticizing etc..
It seemed no different for them either.. Watching these heroes of all ages, and all levels smiling in flip dog , seeing how the power of yoga could entirely FLIP their whole day, and if you can believe it, if you have experienced it yourself, then you see how yoga can flip the story, they could then FLIP their whole destiny.. While watching them all come together, working with anything and anyplace they had to throw down a down dog, they seemed to FORGET the story of strife, forget the script of how cramped they live, how much they lack..
I am totally on board with ANYone in this life who can sit and be comfortable in their own skin having the guts to tell their story.. What you get to witness and take in, and be part of even at your own kitchen table, is how they each share a bit of themselves from the most authentic place. You gotta honor and cheer for a dude named Moses who can employ vulnerability as his strength to speak about his life before yoga. A life saturated in survival living, often going to any extremes for money, hurting himself and others. The open, raw, real expression and painful story that comes through Moses and the gang BEFORE THE STATURE of their teaching could come through.. and BEYOND the teaching itself that brings constant tears to my eyes, and in listening to THEIR stories of pain, wondering WHY on earth this was resonating with me that much until I realized that being able to hold space for Moses's life before YOGA life snatched him up was really Moses unknowingly empowering ME to acknowledge the terrain of my own hero's journey. Compassion and Empathy I could feel for any of them , but for the first time it allowed me to feel it for myself. All the while, I was to busy shrugging it off. Moses , Leah speaking candidly of their own truth, whether it hurt or not, allowed me to sit with the necessary emotion I could offer them ... I sat afterwards and allowed myself to FEEL for my own personal struggle, fight and flight living all the live long day. but also with that felt and healed, it then got me to tap into the stepping stones to finding my own inner teacher, the joy of teaching, evolvement that all started with Baron's support but eventually, if I was gonna keep walking my path to find my Road Home.. It became evident to me that I was gonna have to gear up and walk my path for MYSELF and BY myself... Being alone on this path, often lonely on this path, I realized how UNalone I was... Only when I could really allow the tears of pride to flow for how far they had come.. I could also very humbly SEE my own hunger for LIGHT in a whole new light.
At a certain point of our lives ,or many points, something brings us to a place of surrender, and in that space, usually brought to our knees, the mask comes out , the truth comes out and we see we have lost our way.. We might think that our life is over , in the darkest moments, it damn sure would SEEM that way.. in truth , it is about to BEGIN...
(First off, having spent much time myself in the Baptiste mecca, I have coined Baron as THE " founding father" that have empowered so many to REschool themselves in Self love for BETTER LIVING! Baron helps so many break down barriers of useLESS conditioning, stripping down layers put upon us by others , or those layers we keep insisting make us US.. We walk out a bit more intact , and a bit more at ease with ourselves , and that good vibration stays with us long after leaving the sweat cave, over time, we learn that this goes far beyond yoga exercise, but rather the wisdom of yoga as a gateway to offer us more light of day with simply a better feel and outlook about the self. Turns out, that higher self esteem is meant to be EXERCISED into our own day to day life long after the mat rolls up. Yoga mat, under the arm, eventually we carry out with us LIFE tools of a HIGHER, CLEARER ,PEACEFUL mind, FULLER heart, selflessness, forgiveness... you know shit like that... Ha Ha.. By shit, I mean fertilizer for NEW GROWTH in one's life.. Baron gives us BACK that understanding, and then us yoga teachers who GET that concept have a tangible place to offer that to our students..
Baron blows my mind, one man, often with his own kids in tow, who seems to not EVER sit around idle, but who is rather most interested in going boldly beyond the yoga world of Lululemon, and fancy exotic places now seems to really into the hole in the wall places of OUR humanity, to places where anger and fear breed little good , places
where no one has gone before.. and places that no one else in politics or goverment seemed to REALLY know what to do with.. and teach the POSSIBILITY of looking withIN at the INternal affairs of a human being to have a shot IN SLUMlord HELL as to a bigger scope of Ghandi like Change for the whole of humanity!
I once read something I NEVER forgot ...." if your REALLY THAT good at something , people will know about it and discover YOU.... It does not matter where you live, how big or small the community is, how much you advertise, how much you boast, or even how big your sign is.. Yeah, these things help, but ultimately, I guess can see what Africa is doing in such a big way is because LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE .... I am personally discovering as I teach my own classes, and feel the power of my own soul's power humbly pulling me further into myself to teach something EXTRAORDINARY.. There is less bells and whistles, and yet, ironically.. something in my own classes is being HEARD louder.. Hmmm... withIN myself and my students. That said .. . I ONLY can radar in on Africa's gentle, louder elephant call of its own powerful spirit to call out TO US! This whole blog thing is found UNDER my SPREADING GOOD WORD page.. AFrica is HUNGRY to CHANGE THEIR MIND ABOUT THEMSELVES!!! I remember that hunger well! I SUPPORT that HUNGER from within to DARE to have the BALLS To dream of a different life! Something INside me aches to SPREAD THE WORD about this to anyone that will listen and SUPPORT a country of men and women and children who have been under this spell that THEY DO NOT DESERVE anything BEYOND the cramped closet they are sharing a room with their siblings in..
THIS IS BULLSHIT..A part of me is so deeply passionate about this because I used to BE under that same spell. I know the soul's strength to toss the ego's story that will only keep you IN the slums of stinking thinking.. EVERY time I watch this, I FEEL something old and conditioned LEAVING ME.. In reading this, in reading ANY part of my story, a blog, in watching a man like Moses , YOU too get the powerful OPPORTUNITY to UNLOCK yourself from any place in the story of your own mind or heart or both that continues to shackle you with thinking you also have to play small, or dumb it down or keep accepting some OLD OUTDATED mindset that was passed down to your generation...
Thanks to Utube, giving us all the unlimited ability to "BROADCAST ourself", you get to watch Moses, Catherine and Leah, teach and share yoga from the DEPTH and DEEPEST, RAWEST part of themselves.. Having walked their yoga path and gone through the fire in my own unique way.. All I can do is resonate and be drawn to the personal understanding and awe of the courage each of them had to find, also with Baron as a lifeguide, spiritual house parent to go to Kenya, grab hold of anyone who already decided FIRST inside they were THAT HUNGRY enough to WANT change , the way to change OUTSIDE is to ultimately go inside and dive down underneath the chains of their mind and hearts to go within to face all the parts of them they feared , they battled that kept them swimming and gasping for air in a dirty pool of inner turmoil..These guys ROCK.. They take off the goggles and really SEE the fight emselves, seeing how all the parts that badly maybe wanted to cut away, were the very parts where the BIGGEST light was being dimmed ... What I can share openly with you that shocked me most about ME.. When we go to the places we WON't LOOK. we are not left in darkness and despair but actually BLINDED with the LIGHT and BEST of ourselves.. We go down , down, down , however deep we think we gotta go to get up close and personal with our OWN LIGHT.. dare I say, the divinity of the human spirit. No longer EXPLOITING, but rather Exploring the contaminated garbage thinking that gets them to sniff out to SEE where they lost or tossed their own soul and esteem curbside..To get from THERE, there is a requirement to go TOWARDS one's own personal, unique story of shame, terror, trauma, smallness, emtpiness, self hate, anger and see if there is ANYTHING underneath it that gets us to CROSS over .. Moses, or me or ANYone who can dare go there ultimately discovers a true richness that all in the money can not buy..the KNOWING OF THE WARRIOR spirit in oneself. Something that must be FELT to REALLY FEEL another's! It is THEIR OWN HUMAN SPIRIT has EMpowered them to ignore their story, ignore what even WE have ignorantly KEPT teaching them to THINK and FEEL about themselves or their destiny with our DISempowering, PITYING phrases like "third world"countries.. and shining light and love to the darkness BREEDING more of the same , closeting their REAL FIRE and BEAUTY and POWER of their own human spirit.. Regardless of the once former backlash of their own critical mind or the battle from anyone outside them in Kenya who haven't yet hungered for anything that doesn't feed the starved mind that only knows anger and fear.. THey went anyway...They found the abunant soul through their own practice and now they are GAINFULLY EMPLOYING THE ESTEEM of KENYA!
They went NO where outside their own zipcode, nor were they freed up to trade their small living quarters for some Park Avenue Penthouse as they journeyed towards enlightenment.. Nor did they get to do it with any REAL Outer PEACE and QUIET to hear the voice of the God within..
They have gone on a journey, one that holds many MANY layovers and many layers when the small jagged MISGuided mind insists that as miserable and cramped as it has been , they can NOT allow ourselves permission to break away from the knowingness of what they have ONLY ever known... THEY do not DESERVE to be anything GREAT and MIGHTY , and therefore, THEY might as well, cash it in and STAY SMALL.... STAY comfortably NUMB... fighting their way through each day, for food, for water, for breathing room , for survival.... making do day by day is NOT what GOd wants for ANY single ONE OF US..
You see folks, through my own path, my old battle....Self JUDGEMENT and BLAME and CONDEMNING can NOT make a NEW change, for ANY ONE OF US in ANY Part of the world.. In fact, I promise you, It gurantees us to NEVER really find out who could be if we can NOT part with who or whatever CONDITIONED and CONVINCED us to BELIEVE that we are here to suffer , so struggle , to strain, and worse, SUBCONSCIOUSLY keep teaching that to every generation that comes through us......In fact, It will only ensure that we really NEVER get off the ground.. It is clear to see that a man like Moses who only once knew SELF destruction, hate , and hurt and the hell of feeling there is NOTHING GOOD HE could contribute. Despite the hardened mind of his, or mine or anyone if the SOUL of you knows that is complete HOGWASH and there is a real HUNGER for something better, I believe that God will send Baron or MOSES, or MYSELF in to FIND YOU..
Third world countries start with a third world mind across the globe that fights its greatness and grandeur for PLAYING BIG in this life.. A mind that has often MIScommunicated what Power means , and no matter how much we can brag or boast the majority of us are hardwired to FEAR our POWER within , an ego in Kenya or Kentucky would most prefer that we just hush up, and hunker down instead to cozy up with our shame, perhaps invite it's drinking buddy GUILT in to really KILL a party of EMpowerment... As we begin to make RADICAL change, or ALLOW ourself the SOME GOODS for a change, there is still a bit of a battle with a mind that only knows who were THEN that gets us to stuff it, and toss in our dream of a better, bigger PEACEFUL life ,it would rather keep us thinking WHO are WE anyway to THINK that we have the power to bring back the Peace on Earth so many beauty contestants have the good intention underneath the Derma Blend to still speak of?? How the hell can you CONVINCe yourself of anything BROADER than that when your struggling with yourself and with others that only knew LIFE to be on a much smaller, cramped, HARDER, HOTTER than hell scale?
I can not talk to you about these three without wiping back the tears that spring forth from my own eyes about the silent personal KNOWING about the fire they have walked.. THey have gone to a place you can NOT ever find outside yourself at Destinations.com..
There is no terrain like that of THE HERO's journey.. and in that darkness they found a tiny crack within , that allowed a man named Baron to climb through the lighted window of their own hearts aching for change and possibility of a better tomorrow.. With Baron's support , and REtraining of the mind, they have pulled off the tarp, and UNcovered the Blaze and Blinding light of their FULLEST power of THEIR AUTHENTIC, CONFIDENT , JOYFUL SELVES...
Having only a rich understanding on how to get there from HERE.. I can share with you that You do not go there and not REturn back without the gift of personal DEEP insight and WISDOM, and MORE DEPTH, Deep Understanding and INTIMACY to share with your whole circle... When you find it, you wish NOT to keep it quiet , but to share that path with others, walk WITH THEM.. in deep roots of EMpathy, and quiet understanding , and BIG space to hold space for their own route... In fact, what I can share with you that my fearful , anxious mind forgot to fill me in on is the soul knows that YOU WILL COME OUT THE OTHER SIDE.. you SEEK the light for a REASON, FOR A PURPOSE to Be A BRINGER OF THE LIGHT.... THE light we are looking for is UNconditional LOVE , our minds pack a ton or smarts, but to me, I have discovered that it is my own soul's knowledge about the power of UNconditional SELF love and ACCEPTANCe and FORGIVENESS..that is going to bridge ANY gap between partners, neighborhoods, communities, states and countries ... It is ONLY ever going to be With love and empathy and EMpowered Compassion FOR THE SELF that is only ever going to show and share a sense of unity that embarks one person like Baron, one woman like Paige, one woman like Leah, Catherine , myself or a young man named MOSES that push us further and deeper that as we touch that bigger part of ourselves, there is a knowing that we are meant to be on a path that wants to humbly lead and light the way for others to find their light within.... that torches and REignites in us ,not just a deeper love of YOGA , but the deeper love of YOGA that leads us to DEEPER intimacy, and REconnection in HUMANITY... Ibelieve as we see the Global state of affairs and struggle to keep holding on to feeling that we can be safe in a world large and at war.. if we get quiet, if we go INside for the solution that will work for the highest and best of everyone .. we will see that within, ONE person.. there is A HIGHER Power from withIN that says simply TURN AWAY from a poverty mindset that wants to stay in the dark, stay in isolation, stay DISconnected from each other.. NONE OF THIS SPARKS CHANGE FOR THE DAWN of a NEW DAY... Moses , Catherine , Leah, Me.. BEen there , Done that.. What you see with Moses, or Catherine , or Leah, is they are freeing themselves up from thinking that they have to stay with the status quo of staying slaves to the third world thinking that confined them in the first place.. Looking at their smiles for teaching yoga and standing with stature and proudness for who they have discovered themselves to be.. They, We ,ANYONE on a quest for yoga, wellness in any form, is doing just that.. Perhaps, it was an ASS backwards way to get there. Perhaps, it came in the death of a loved one, a cancer, a divorce, a depression, a loss of some sort.. God will use the flimiest tiniest window for BIG AWESOME CHANGE.. Baron consistently seems to know HE is the messenger to tune into SOUL's across the globe whispering CHANGE.. LIKE IT OR NOT. .CHANGE!!!
Things do NOT change, WE change.. We start all change with CHANGING OUR MINDS about what we think or who we thought we were.. ...
Maybe that is what it took for ME, for Moses, for HUMANITY around the globe to get so busy, so isolated, so big into STUFF , so convinced YOU HURT SO I WILL HURT YOU BACK.. Maybe , sadly this is where we all had to get to, losing our sense of safety , losing ourselves through the excesss, losing our soliders , losing our job, losing our health, losing .. get lost and more lost listening and believing in that LIFE IS HARD, LOVE HURTS, THIS IS THE WAY IT IS... YEt, can we see how we gotta EMbace the IGNORANCE, EMBRACE THE LOST, EMBRACE THE CANCER<>
Truth be told, Our soul never feared this juicy, gritty , sorta soul seaching thing, in fact, I am learning to know very consciously this was the PATH we EACH had to walk to GET BACK TO THE CREATOR within.. We OURSELVES had to get to a place of bringing a loving LOOK at the ILLUSION of BROKE , broken, bitter, fragments of ourselves to HEAL it the break in our esteem... which puts us back to OUR GOODNESS and OUR WHOLENESS. That has to come first to be able to teach Bridge and Wheel from something outside the training manual??
I hope that somehow in this message I can convey to you that all any of us have done is some deep personal work to put the pieces back together, lay down the OLd Story, and find PEACE from within that comes with UNconditional self love.. IF your are not there yet, or if you find as you continue on your path, you want to get to something UNDERNEATH your exhaustion of feeling a big part of you is amiss.. no matter what all external appearances look like.. then perhaps, Moses, Catherine, Paige , Baron, Leah, and Myself could be YOUR bridge that gets YOU to lay down the sword and STOP battling yourself , stop STARVING yourself of love and being loved and quit BINGEING and PURGING, and chewing the fat thinking you must only KEEP dining on anything that ultimately will never FEED your soul which aches to FUEL you with KNOWING of just how BIG your SUSPOSED to be!
African Yoga Project is showing themselves and US what can really GO DOWN when one GOES down INSIDE the well of themselves and touches the power of the GOD within.. The fullness and wisdom of teaching yoga not from their heads but from the expansion of a bigger love for them gives them the power to have a bigger heart for everyone in the room..
Watching Moses do his thing in what one portrays or considers the SLUMS of what so many call home.. is teaching us there IS NO PLACE that YOGA or GOD or BEAUTY can not get to.... can not NOT heal.. There is NO lack in the fullness of one's heart.. and as you watch these videos and documentary's , Africa's spirit rips through the superinfo highway.. They are going WITHIN .. THEY no longer freeing themselves , refusing to buy into an OUTDATED inner slave that will HOLD themself in captivity, There are teaching us through their live example what yoga has set out to REteach ALL OF OUR MINDS, there IS NO separateness, When you watch the snippets of progression with the AFRICA YOGA PROJECT.. Moses, Paige , Baron Leah, Catherine and the collective smiles of SO CALLED IMPoverished Men, Women, and children spirits are SOMEHOW crossing Borders and reaching US, ALL THE WAY FROM THERE TO HERE.... NOW, that IS POWER of what comes from the POWER WITHIN...
Thank you Moses, Leah, Catherine, Leah and Baron.. Through YOUR witnessing YOUR WORK, I could finally hold a sense of deep pride in MY OWN INNER WORK.... Thank you for sharing The BEFORE to REALLY help me FEEL your AFTER..
YOU INSPIRE and TEACH a TEACHER OVER HERE.. to keep going inside and constantly stay awake to letting the barriers crumble as I go more towards taking a bigger honorable look at the time to TAKE A LEAD ROLE IN MY OWN LIFE!
