This morning I was a bit stiff as I woke up to teach my 8am Power Yoga class in a beautiful beachfront studio overlooking turquoise waters and white sand in Bavaro Beach, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. I was a little worn from teaching Vinyasa 2 with arm balances and inversions from 8pm to 9:15pm the evening before and having little time to sleep and recover. I’m traveling, working hard and pushing myself to soak up of every minute of this opportunity.
I stepped to the mat to begin teaching and began with some simple asanas to help my students warm up, but also restoring my own sore body. A few breaths and it came to me: GRATITUDE. I realized that my “bad morning” was actually quite incredible. I realized just how amazing my life really is, because right now, I’m realizing a dream and goal I set for myself.
I flashed back to a time when I worked in marketing for large corporations. I did this for 17 long years, 11 of which were spent fighting traffic to reach a downtown office building each morning. I would wake at 6:30am, scurry to wake, shower, put on make up, iron my dress clothes, scour to find panty hose that didn’t have runs in them, pack a lunch and hurry out the door without eating breakfast. I would arrive to my desk, usually a few minutes late, and log in to my computer. For the next 9 hours, I would sit within gray walls of a cubicle (later upgraded to an office), and I would work hard as I watched the small clock in the bottom right corner of my computer screen. I would challenge myself to learn and improve my skills. I would work hard to earn a paycheck and even stay late each night, with hopes each year of a pay raise. But I would not work with passion.
During my breaks in my corporate life, I would dream of traveling afar and living on an island. I would think of ways that I could bring meaning to my life. I would even read blog posts like this one, wondering how others accomplished this. At the time, I wasn’t even practicing yoga. So I would dream of ways that I could help people, possibly volunteering and using my Spanish language skills from college. This day dream was relentless, and evolved into creating goals and like I would do for large companies, I created a “strategic business plan” for my own life, complete with a budget and timeline.
Fast forward to years later. Years of life experience, years of yoga practice and years of teaching yoga and self discovery. I made countless preparations and took each step of my strategic plan, but I calmed down and listened to my heart as well. Now, I find myself exactly where I dreamed I would be. I’m making a difference in my students lives and doing it in beautiful places all over the world. How could I ever wake up unmotivated when I think about how far I have come?
Each yoga class I teach, I begin by asking my students to create an intention (a present tense affirmation) for their practice and to carry that intention with them throughout the day and throughout their week. This intention setting is the first step to making self improvements and working toward goals and dreams. As I’m currently teaching many tourists in the Dominican Republic, I’m often asked with wonder after class how I ended up here, essentially how I ended up with my dream job. It’s my hope that by my example and by my yoga instruction, that I’m making a difference in each of their lives, helping them on their own path to pursuing what makes them happy. It’s my passion to help others to find peace and wellness in their own lives, one-hour of yoga at a time.
If you are not where you want to be right now in your life, you are not stuck. You can make the right choices each day and put in the hard work to find a new outcome. It starts with a daydream and then building your own strategic plan. And that can be reinforced each day as you step to the top of your yoga mat, breathe, set an intention and journey mindfully on your path.
Chel Rogerson (RYT 200) teaches yoga and works as a freelance writer traveling the world. She also teaches/performs hoop dance, pole dance and fire dance in the Outer Banks of North Carolina through her business, Bliss Fit.
