Be Happy

Here's Kellie Finn, the amazing woman who has been teaching me yoga for the last year. I have been lucky enough to drop off Georgia a bit early at school and then go to a class before work about once a week. Usually I am late and flustered as I settle myself on the floor, but I am always welcome. By the end of class I feel like my tiny little struggling stream has been reunited with the huge deep river of life. And it feels wonderful. Sure we do lots of difficult bendy things with our body, but the pervading feeling is one of intense peace. Really lovely.



Today, before yoga, I had worked myself into a tizzy. I had started a list in my head of everything that needs fixing up in the house and how much money we would need to fix it. I got carried away and sort of miserable. All I wanted to do was get away from the children on this beautiful day and write a mangy list. Thankfully I didn't. But I was still feeling tight and annoyed with the world when I showed up to yoga.

Kellie brought up big mind and small mind and how we need them both. Small mind helps us survive and deal with the day to day mundane while big mind is the......Oh I can't remember what she said. She is eloquent and insightful, and really profound in a way that is embedded in everyday life. But I can never recreate what she says. Today what struck me was: if you allow yourself to be in your heart (meditation and yoga are a way inside, as is simply following the breath) and you ask your heart what you need; you realize you already have it. You always have what you need.

My list of complaints poofed into dust. What a relief. Really who gives a crap about the ugly linoleum? Really?
I went from feeling hopeless to buoyant in that hour and a half.
It made me think of a poem I love:


Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
and all along
my soul is being blown by great winds across the sky.
—Ojibway saying

Then I drove by the new Tire Warehouse sign.