Peace – What are you looking for?

Peace and a way to share it – What are you looking for?

Peace - Azul Yoga - Goldilocks Blog - Florida Beach Sunrise

 

I travel forty five minutes by car to the area of woods where I plan to hike. I drive up a hill and park next to an old overgrown cemetery. I open my door and step outside to a green grassy knoll. The sun is shining overhead surrounded by a bright Carolina blue sky. I instantly feel more at peace. I head to the opening in the woods, an begin looking around, noticing the beauty of nature. I breathe deeply, wanting to take it all in.

The head of the trail is lined with wild flowers; yellow, purple, and white. The trees are of all sizes, and as I walk further down the path, the trees start getting bigger, taller, wider. It’s becomes darker here as I begin walking deeper into the woods under this thick folliage of trees, with just a few streams of light shining through. The wind is gently blowing, creating shadows of the leaves as they dance on the dirt path.

I continue walking further and deeper into the woods. I notice a large dark grey rock up ahead. As I get closer I see a rich green moss covering one side, a spring is near, I can hear the water trickling over smaller patches of rocks. I keep walking, and with just a few steps I can see the water from the spring as it moves across my path. I step over it’s only a few inches wide but the ground is wet, and I marvel at the beauty of nature self sustaining, feeding itself.

The path begins to climb in elevation… My sense of peace deepens as I continue going deeper into the woods. I keep walking. I keep climbing in elevation. The path curves to the left and then back to the right. I keep moving forward, zig zagging my way up the mountain. As I near the top I can see that the path ends, and if I want to get to the top I’m going to have to use my hands to climb up the last few feet. And, I do, I make it to the top of this ridge. I love that it’s level an expansive and sunny up here. I walk closer to the edge of the other side. Here I’m looking at the most amazing vista of mountains and valleys for as far as I can see. I look down below and see a river gracefully winding through the base of the mountains, and when I look up to the sky, overwhelmingly, I feel a grateful energy of being alive. I breathe it all in.

Over the next few months I come back to this mountain as often as I can to cultivate the peace within me, and as I do I begin feeling this urge to practice yoga at the top. I don’t know why, because I don’t know anyone who practices yoga.

At home I begin hearing a chanting inside my head yoga, yoga, yoga, like in the classic movie Animal House where they shouted toga, toga, toga. I must of talked about it out loud because one day a friend gave me a VHS tape, of a thirty minute gentle yoga class, and a way too small foam yoga mat for my 5’8″ body.

I begin practicing it everyday and as I do I noticed how great I feel, peaceful, calm, serene. Just what I needed after feeling sad, alone and bitter for so many, many, many years. At the end of the practice, not wanting this feeling to go away, I innately sit up and meditate in the silence and stillness of my body and mind. Some days I sit for just a few minutes, some days for a very long time.

It was shortly after I began practicing that my life began to change in a big way. I was loosing everything that I had, but I didn’t know it yet the universe was really was working in my favor. I dove deeper into the practice, and found even deeper moments of peace. Once I realized how simple it all really is, it made me a little angry at myself for all the years I wasted living an unhappy life.

When you find something that gives you that gift, after all of the years of suffering, you want to share it out to the world. You want everyone to feel the peace within. I’ve been looking for ways to share it with others ever since. Because once you find something so good, so wonderful, you feel as if you have to share it out to the world.

As I continued my journey of yoga and meditation, I began noticing more, and having more awareness of habits and patterns. For instance, I would of never been able to have this realization and be on the path to living my dharma, if I didn’t lose everything I owned. I never would of voluntarily walked away from what I had sacrificed and worked so hard for. Just like noticing the correlation here where I use the words “sacrifice” and “hard” to describe a negative event.

As I was diving deeper into yoga and just finishing up my 200HR training. I once again started having this urge or feeling to begin practicing every morning at sunrise. I voluntarily taught the sunrise class at the studio where I trained. So for two days a week for a year I taught, hoping to cultivate the habit. At the time, I thought it was more of a Yoga thing where the ancient yogi’s said to get up and practice before the sunrise, because of the energy at that time of day, gives you most benefit.

Time continued on, I took a lot more training, taught a lot more classes and I moved, but the voice continued. Share the peace you found within. Create the habit of practicing at sunrise. Since I had moved closer to the beach here in South Florida and thought it was a shame that I had hardly been going, I decided to go to the beach at sunrise every morning to practice and meditate. And it was so beautiful and awe inspiring that I again felt like I needed to share.

I started posting a photo everyday on Instagram, and about six months into doing just that I ran into a friend on the beach. She told me about a new broadcasting app called periscope, and went on to say
that she felt like she needed to share that information with me. I was already sharing on many social media sites, and was hesitant, but with my intention of sharing peace out into the world, I started broadcasting every morning a little yoga or meditation. As I sat their nourishing my own body and soul at sunrise, I began to nourish other souls as well. And, within no time, I started trending and not quite yet a year latter I have around 30,000 followers. It has given me the opportunity to teach at a large national yoga event, and the opportunities keep coming.

I still want to find more ways to share peace out into the world, and as I do I will continue with the lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

Allow yourself to flow through life with ease and grace, detach with awareness, listen to the voice within, trust your instincts, know your intention, and let go. And just like watching the rising sun, after some time, you will look up or look back and say, wow, look how far I’ve come!

Goldilocks Blog – Marvel At The Moment

Goldilocks Blog – Marvel At The Moment  

Every morning tired or not I wake up early to find a place of beauty, a place to sit in peace, meditating for whatever amount of time that I have, and relfecting on that moment with gratitude. When I’m at home I take myself to the beach and marvel at the beauty of nature as I watch the tide flow in and out, and the birds glide right on by. I see the sun rise always faster than what I imagine it should, and I gaze up into the sky and stare at the clouds moving overhead, noticing the many different images being formed. I deeply breathe in the salt air as if I’m savoring my favorite chocolate. I allow the sand to cling to my clothes and feet, which later become a gentle reminder of being fully present, as a few grains of sand always stay with me throughout the day. I allow the sight of the occasional ripple in the water to remind me of the unexpected moments that slightly alter the path, guiding me in the right direction. I sit in stillness with a knowing that nothing is really still.

When I travel, which I will be doing next week,  I marvel at life in a slightly different way.  When inside it’s easy to have a false sense of stillness within the unmoving walls of a room, and the heavy and solid pieces of furniture. I sometimes forget about how fast time is moving, which literally and unfortunately has often just past me by without any awareness. So the beauty that I look to see may be the varying degrees of a smile of one of my children, a beautiful and petite flower of a weed that moves slightly with the breeze, and then with the simple awareness of my own breath.  Here I feel like I’m still, but with a knowing that everything around me is moving.

Both ways are the same, but at first seem slightly different. The same is true in how we view many things. Another yogic lesson.

Marvel at the moment, whatever it looks like, and brings yourself into the present moment. Because it’s here and now where life is taking place.

Just a thought, With Love and gratitude,

Goldi – Mwah!

The Big Wave – Bimini Bahamas!

  The big wave happened in Bimini Bahamas, and no I’m not talking about surfing waves, but in true unbridled happiness extended out to me in the form of a gesture and wave of hello.  A wave so big and genuine by strangers that seemed to be coming from the heart center of their being. Which reminded me of a time when years ago I moved from South Florida, where I was raised, to Western North Carolina where I went to college.  

In South Florida there were so many people that I felt a little anonymous. I’m not sure anyone particular person taught me this but, it seemed to me that everyone was just moving with their head down and doing their own thing. That I was to be cautious around strangers, always lock my doors, and to be mindful of what situation I was walking into.  In Western North Carolina, people would wave to you when you drove by them and greet you when you were walking by them.  It made me feel for a long time on edge, like…what do these people want from me – are they trying to tell me something. When in reality, they were just being polite and spreading good cheer. Now, that I’m back in South Florida I don’t find that to be true, everyone I meet tends to be generally nice and friendly, so it was probably a culmination of many factors that made me feel that way.  But here I am again many years later faced with a similar situation in Bimini Bahamas. While riding around on a golf cart, and met by Bahamians on theirs, I would do my familiar finger tip up wave that I learned while in North Carolina without too much thought but trying to be friendly, and they would outstretch their arms as if they were reaching out to touch me, and wave there hand energetically side to side, with the biggest grin on their face. They were fully present and mindful of the wave. Their gaze was fully on me, and I felt it. It’s something I would do if I unexpectedly saw my best friend, and I was trying to get her attention, after years of not seeing her. This time however I wasn’t scared or uncomfortable, I just smiled and truly embraced the greeting. It brought me a lot of joy.

It made me want to bring the big wave back to the states and into my daily life. Being in Bimini Bahamas made me think of the many ways that we can be kind to one another without much effort but in just creating new habits. I felt it also in the kindness of my host Kenny and Pauline, Bimini Bahamas Rental , who I witnessed not only treat me with the utmost kindness, but selflessly serve the Port Royal community with gatherings, and in continuing service. Anything anyone needed in supplies or in repairs they would contact Ken. So much so that Kenny claimed that this was the Summer of Ken, and that he was taking it off. You could see the panic in everyones eyes, but he still compassionately served. I could barley keep up, but learned many great lessons of kindness and compassion this summer in Bimini Bahamas, and hope I take them with me for many years to come. 

So if one day your driving around and you see a person with an outstretched arm, energetically waving to you, don’t get scared it may just be me saying hello!