Bestof09 Moment of Peace (8th) and Challenge That Made Me Grow (9th)

December 8 Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude.
What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did
you get there?

This past Spring, I did yoga on the beach of Mustang Island State Park. My friends and I had camped there the night before, and as I was running on the beach the morning after sleeping on it, I thought of how nice it would be to do yoga in the sand as the sun rose. I ate a small snack, I hadn't had breakfast yet. My stomach was pretty empty which is ideal for practicing yoga. I went to the edge of the water where the sand is just hard enough so that you do not sink too deeply into it. I did yoga there for an hour or so, barely conscious of the world waking up around me. I looked only out at the water of the Gulf, I opened my heart to the sea. My friend R joined me and practiced next to me for a while, but I hardly noticed her there aside from hearing her deep breathe. I was in the middle of a upward dog when tears came to the sides of my eyes. I felt my chest opening so wide and my breathe coming in so deeply that I began to cry from the sheer excellence of it all. In the middle of this realization I think my friend stopped doing yoga and walked off to get her camera. She took photos of me and I continued to pretend that the world was just me and the water. It was a fun game. I listened to the waves, watched the sun turn golden on the water and I felt the sweet saltiness of the breeze. As I did king pigeon and I stared out at the water and I was so wrapped up in the beauty of the moment that I almost felt I could see myself, look at myself from the outside to the in. I was transparent, then. I felt so much power, gratitude, self-worth, healing, and peace in that moment. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life and I found it thanks to the beauty of the beach and my ever-growing yoga practice. And I will remember that peace of mind that I felt then and henceforth for years to come because I connect back with it daily ever since then.

December 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year.
That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best
challenge of the year for you?

I was talking with a treasured friend and confidante of mine. We were talking about my career and future plans. I finally admitted to her (and to myself) that I wanted to be a writer and a coach and that these were my passions. Firstly, it had taken me a majority of the year to admit this to myself---so that admittance alone was a step and a very difficult one at that. Upon my telling her this, she threw something at me that I was not prepared to handle. She told me point blank that currently, from her perspective, I was doing it all wrong and that I was going about life all wrong. She said that she saw the way I was living and the way that I was living was draining my life energy. I balked. My throat was dry. No one had been so bold and laid it out so plainly to me before this time. I cried, realizing she was right. I have changed my methods since then and I have began to move in new directions. Slowly, but surely. That conversation was one of the hardest of my life and it brought me to my edge because I finally realized what I was doing wrong. My treasured friend challenged the way that I currently look at my world - my employment, my relationships and my art. Since that conversation I feel as if I am slowly breaking out of my old ways, forging a new way of looking at myself and my life as an artist. It is extremely difficult to create this new path. That conversation was extremely difficult for me but necessary for me to grow. I can't keep doing what I've always done. I need to blossom out of this frozen shell that has done it the same way for the past three years and shake it up.

This was the best challenge of the year for me because it forced me to really evaluate what I was doing with my life and it forced me to evaluate if what I was doing each day was or was not bringing me closer to my goal of becoming a coach and an artist. At that point, I wasn't doing anything that brought me closer to these ends. Thanks to the tireless help of my significant other and thanks to many of my dear friends, I have started on a path that is taking me closer to my newly realized goals. I must say, the path has been very rocky but I love the rocks and I feel divine.

Current book I'm reading: Almost finished with "The Sister" by Kaufmann