faith

We opened the new location today.

I just can't believe how well everything turned out. From running into a student at the Fedex who was dying to lend me her truck (which I really needed right then), to the crew of people who showed up to help yesterday (always just enough people, more would have gotten awkward), to the way the furniture from the old space fit right in like it was made for the new location. It makes me think it was made for the new location. Time, after all, is not what we think it is.

But that's off topic. I took the 11 am class this morning, and it was packed. Alexandra, who teaches that class, was not expecting me to be there, but she talked about the faith required to open the studio, about the faith required for all transformation.

I got all teary because I didn't know before that moment that I had faith. I knew the studio would open on the date that was set. I always knew that. A couple of times yesterday people gave me odd looks when I told them that, yes, we were opening tomorrow. There was a lot of work to do, but I never doubted that it would get done. And then people showed up. Lots of them. They painted the baseboards, framed the signs, scraped the paint off the kitchen floor. Some of them risked tetanus and bodily harm by doing real construction demo and rebuilding. All of them worked really hard and selflessly to make it happen.

I do have faith. I don't have to worry. I know that I am on the right track with square one. I know because everything that I need always comes to me just when I need it.

The rest of my life isn't usually like that, of course. And sometimes square one doesn't feel like that either. What would it be like to understand that everything is always being taken care of? Always. That, I'm learning, is faith.

I want everyone to take the plunge. Quit your job. Do what you love. Dive. You can worry, and you will worry, but do it anyway. You never know. It might just work. In fact, it will always work. The only danger is that you'll have to change your perspective on what it means to be working.

underwhelmed?

I have wanted to write about Monday since Monday. Monday was one of those god-awful days where I went around being bitchy to everyone, especially people who were tyring to help me. I felt like my to-do list was insurmountable, and I hated myself for not being a calmer and sweeter, more centered human being.

Today my to-do list is longer. My business account became overdrawn when I had money sitting at home waiting to be deposited. My real estate deal has fallen through. And I'm happy. I'm content, and I know that I'm doing as good a job as I can do. I know that the yoga studio will open at the new location on Sunday even if I haven't finished. I almost certainly will not have finished.

My friend Matthew (who's doing all the work) mentioned today that maybe I could feel a little more overwhelmed. A little stress response would help get the fitting rooms in and the baseboards installed. A little stress response might get me down to the city and into the bank on time. But I don't want it. I don't want to feel frantic and spent out and spun out and like I'm coming up short all the time. I'm fine. The studio is fine. It will all be okay.

The interesting thing is that I am noticing now that how I feel usually has absolutely nothing to do with my circumstances. Today I feel great even though everything is uncertain, and honestly, not tending toward the outcome I would most like to see. Monday I was miserable even though my circumstances were much more optimistic. What's up with that?

So my emotional state is basically independent of my circumstances, but I still try really, really hard to control the circumstances of my life, most of which are completely out of my hands. Grasping at the illusion of being in control brings me and everyone around me pain and unhappiness. Like on Monday, I had to make the customer service guy at Comcast understand that he had to send me another modem, and no! I absolutely would not pay $15 for shipping. I yelled and screamed and cursed in a wasted effort to gain control over that situation. I don't know how he felt about it or if I brought him suffering. Probably. I definitely made myself unhappy. Unhappier. I was already unhappy or I wouldn't have behaved that way.

It gets tricky here though, because I can also grasp at this feeling of ease that I have in my life today. It might not be like that tomorrow. Tomorrow I may be yelling into my phone again at some live human being who has the misfortune to get me on the other side of the line. I may be worried and stressed out and panicked about how I will get everything done. I may be surly and quiet and weird with the people in my life who I love and who are trying to help me.

Is it a choice? Do I get to decide how I will be? I have never successfully just changed my mood because I willed it (without chemicals). But I do know the actions that tend to give me the result of joy and ease in my life. Basically, I need to go to yoga. Especially when I'm busy and I don't think there's time. I also need to eat. On Monday I skipped breakfast and ate very little until dinner. It may sound silly and basic, but it's something I forget when I get too busy: eat.

Eat and do yoga? Is that really all I have to do? Not exactly, but I would love to remember that it's a great place to start.

fun

Something was bothering me a lot about yesterday's entry. Is watching Dexter really the only thing I can think of that I do that isn't work? Really? Don't I go to movies or take hikes or go out dancing? Truthfully? Maybe I saw three movies in 2009. Maybe. I probably went on a dozen hikes, which isn't bad, but only four or five with friends. Dancing? Once? Maybe?

Am I that serious? One of the niyamas (observances) of yoga is self-study or Svadhyaya. So I'm learning. I guess I'm pretty damn serious. (I wonder if everybody knew that but me.) But another of the niyamas is Santhosha, or contentment. It is literally my yogic obligation to be content. I think that having fun and letting go and being frivolous more often will help me with that. Right? Any normal, fun-loving people out there to confirm it?

So what do I think is fun? Other than work? It took me some time to come up with much, but I decided today that I'm joining the rock climbing gym. I think I will really love it. I've done it a couple of times, although never in a gym, and it's always been great. They even have a bouldering area, and I just know I'm going to dig that.

Plus, they have great yoga. I know, what do I need yoga classes for? The truth is that I love going to class at square one. We have amazing teachers, but it's work for me. I'm on. I have to be friendly and fix heaters and find toilet paper. I really, really don't mind doing that stuff. I love meeting the students and catching up with teachers, but it's work. So I'll do yoga at the rock climbing gym. I'll have options, and square one will of course still be one of them.

As soon as I join. I might be able to go check it out tomorrow. In between meeting number one (yoga studio) and meeting number two (real estate). Or maybe after meeting number two and before checking in at the studio. But before doing the late night sample class. Okay, maybe Wednesday. But it's happening. This week.

work

Now that I am self-employed, the line between work and the rest of my life is becoming very, very hazy. What is work anyway?

Writing this blog: work or not work?

Work. Work that I love, but work. Selling real estate? Definitely work. Walking on the beach with my dog? Not work. Or is it? Isn't it personal work? Yoga: work or not work? Work. It's work on my own growth, and it's work to make me a better teacher.

What isn't work? I guess watching Dexter isn't work (I've been spending a lot of time doing that lately), but basically aren't we always growing and learning and wouldn't most of us agree that growing and learning are work?

I've spent a lot of time this weekend working on the new space. My hands are kind of raw from installing click-and-lock laminate flooring. My knees started to hurt. But a lot of that time was spent talking to our new neighbors or to people who came by to help or see the new space. All of this was definitely work, but it never felt like work. Not even for a second.

My professional goal is to work a lot, but never feel like I'm working.

Two and a half months into self-employment, and this is one big experiment. What are the things that I do that are producing results--whether it's making the yoga studio better for everyone or getting my clients into houses--that are the most enjoyable, that feel the least like work?

I'm learning that I need to delegate the activities that are painful for me. That pain and dread are good indications that I'm probably not great at those things anyway. I have finally given the square one website over to a studio volunteer who does it for a living. She's great. In an hour she made the website look way better than I ever could, even if I slaved over it for weeks. And she enjoyed it.

So far, I know I love starting things. I am dying to open more yoga studios. That means I need more capital, so my work now is to find that capital and do what I can to keep the ideas flowing. A lot of the detail-oriented implementaion of the ideas can be delegated. Someone will love doing it. Like the website. I'm learning. Lots of people can do lots of things way better than I can and be happy doing them.

But there are one or two things that I do really, really well. The experiment now is to be very clear about what those things are and figure out how to do more of those things and less of everything else. It's an obligation, in fact. Ultimately, the goal is to be of maximum service to humanity, right? Isn't that your goal? If that's the case, we better be doing what we love. I've spent enough time in jobs I really dislike to know that it is very difficult to be of maximum service if I hate my work.

Oh, and I haven't forgotten that I have to make a living. I have this crazy, naive hunch that if my goal is to be of maximum service and if I focus on doing the things I love, the makin-a-living part will just fall into place. I'd love to hear people tell me their experience with this. In any case, it's just another experiment.

community

The best thing about square one is and has always been the community that builds it.

Today was the first official work day at the new location. Here is my public thanks to Matthew Flanagan (boss), Judy Huang (assistant boss and photographer), Michelle Mitchell, Alexandra Teague, Carlos Pena Garrido, Yael Martinez, Dylan, Wendy, Mike. I really hope I didn't forget anyone! Buddy.

It was a great day. It reminded me of the first square one and how all these people came together to make it happen, most of whom had never done yoga and never intended to do yoga. It was spectacular. Sometimes when I'm at home alone on Saturday nights feeling like I don't have enough friends, I have to remember those days. Not only do I have plenty of friends, I have outstanding friends. Friends who will drop everything to help out. Friends who want nothing more than for me to succeed.

If you want to read the story of the first opening, please read it at http://www.squareoneyoga.com/thanks.html, but now back to today. What's happening now is different because it's not personal. The people who came today are coming for square one, not for me. They want square one to be successful. They believe in the vision of the studio and they're willing to give up their time and their money to see it through.

So many people are a part of this now. Last weekend we had the Haiti benefit concert and bakesale. People spent their entire day baking for us (thanks Carleen and Caitlin!). Other people brought bottles of wine and lots and lots of people came and spent lots of money. We raised way more than I expected.

I could never do that on my own. I didn't have any money to send to Haiti. What I have now is a long list of contacts that I use very, very carefully. I have a lease on a space that can be used for events. I have a little time to send emails and ask people to come. I do a couple very simple, easy things, and all these people come together and accomplish really amazing things.

I could not have opened square one on my own and I could not complete this move on my own.

I was teaching restorative tonight after the big work day, and I felt all this gratitude that I get to be a part of this. I don't own square one. On paper, maybe, but from day one, square one has been a collaboration. I am entrusted to make decisions, but that's it. It's not mine.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to talk about God for one minute. As you understand God. It has all fallen into my lap. The very best things have all happened with no effort on my part. I make way better decisions for square one than I can possibly take credit for. Someone's watching out for us. I know it.

Anyway. This is a blog about business. Business means providing a service for a community. Building a business is building a community. That's it. I get all worked up about stuff like how much the underlayment costs and whether or not to hire a particular teacher and how the schedule should be structured and why no one came to a particular class. I guess it's my responsibility to worry about those things, but the truth is that that stuff works itself out when I focus on the who I'm serving, the people in the community. And then the amazing thing is that those people turn around and literally build my business. They install the floors and refer their friends, and they keep coming back for yoga again and again and again.

As my new favorite teacher, Rusty Wells, always says at the end of class, "how blessed we are." Indeed. How blessed we are.

here are the pictures Judy took of the space. the before shots.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/judyoski/sets/72157623250398153/show/

slowing down

I said yesterday in the blog that I was going to slow down. I didn't slow down, I collapsed. (And I'm feeling okay about it.)

In ayurveda, there are the three doshas: sattva, rajas and tamas. This is an overgeneralization, but basically, sattva is pure and clean, rajas is hectic and frantic and tamas is collapsed and decaying.

In my life, I am beginning to see how I move from rajas to tamas and back again. There are these wonderful moments of sattva that sometimes happen in between. I think the older I get and the more I practice, the sattva moments happen more often and last a little longer. But it's all cyclical. It's normal, natural. I've been in a long period of a lot of frantic activity. Of course I collapse.

The goal is sattva: quiet and alert and calm. That means slowing down. I've just overshot the mark a bit. I'm working on it.

Now back to Dexter.

distracted

This blog is going to be a little personal. Sorry. If you just want to read about signing leases and yoga asana, read a different entry.

The heat in my life has been turned up the last few weeks. (Kind of funny that this perfectly coincides with starting to take yoga in a heated room, something I swore once I would never do.) I've been floating around unaware for a long time and now all the sudden something is making me look. It's awkward and inconvenient and messy.

I went back to therapy a few weeks ago. It got really intense really fast. And then I decided to quit. The therapist annoyed me. She seemed smug. I decided if I just kept going to yoga and focusing on the good things, the right things, then that stuff that's getting stirred up would work itself out.

But I run away. That's my nature. It won't work itself out because I'll find a way to distract myself. I used to distract myself with drinking and smoking and lines. I don't recommend it. It's a deeply destructive way to feel okay.

When I started doing yoga, I settled down a lot, but I got distracted again when I started the business. I became an obsessive multitasker. I email and drive. A lot. Just like when I drank and drove, I feel manically above the law, above reason, super human. It's completely insane, and a symptom of me not being able to sit with myself, despite all my yoga and meditation and holiness. I'm as crazy as ever.

In some ways this activity is wonderful and creative and I'm blessed to be able to do it. In other ways, it's still a distraction, and one that is leading me away from myself rather than closer. I get the sense somehow that I'm missing the point.

When I quit drinking, I was scared that I wouldn't be creative without booze. I have the same fear now. If I slow down, I'll run out of good ideas and the business will fail. I'll quit creating.

But when I stopped drinking, I didn't become any less creative. What I found was that drinking had actually hampered my creativity, and what I did create was small and not very useful. A few paintings. A couple short stories. That's all great, but it came in fits and starts. I never put enough energy into it. I didn't have much energy left over to give to it. I was never able to be consistent enough to create a body of work that I could share. Now I create useful stuff. I created a business, a new career. I created this blog that's really growing on me. And I'm sticking with it. It's way better than a few drunken paintings.

I wonder if slowing down will actually focus my creativity in a new way, like giving up drinking did. Interesting. I think I have to try.

I can't stop the therapy now, even though it's gotten so uncomfortable. In fact, I have to keep at it because it's gotten so uncomfortable. It's hard, that's all. When it gets hard in yoga class, I don't hate the teacher. So maybe it's not the therapist, smug or not. I think I'll give her one more shot.