Today, I found myself sitting in traffic - 45 minutes of traffic, to be exact - the longest it has ever taken me to get home from work. Oy. I realize that this may be very middle of the road depending on geography, but when it takes me roughly 14 minutes and 38 seconds (I may or may not have timed it...more than once) without traffic. That's enough of a difference to make me blow a freaking gasket.
Normally, you'd pull up next to me in bumper to bumper traffic and I'm that chick who's flipping everybody and their mothers' off and swearing up a storm. I have serious road rage people, this is not a joke. I'm entirely serious.
But no, that was not me today. Today, I was that chick who had the volume on full blast, sun roof open (Minnesota fall-time, I love you) and was belting it out to some tunes. I was having a blast and I didn't care who knew - admittedly, I was banging some T Swift. No shame here.
After one week of yoga teacher training under my belt I've already started to feel a huge shift in the decisions I'm making in all aspects of my life. Some of these are small shifts made subconsciously that I barely notice, and others - like my decision not to flip out over traffic - are more significant and made with intention and purpose. In order to lead a more mindful, holistic life I'm putting the lessons I've learned on my mat into practice each and every day.
Through teacher training, more time on my mat and meeting more yogis who share the same passion as me I've come to realize that it's true - we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And as one of my favorite yoga teachers, Justyn, said in class last week (I'm paraphrasing the best I can, she speaks to it much better than this), things don't happen to us. They simply happen. And we have a choice to either let them alter the mood we're in, to disrupt our flow, or we can acknowledge them and let them go. It's so simple and yet so profound. Obviously, at the time she was teaching to a room full of yogis twisted into all different shapes on their mats, but this is something - like most things I've learned in yoga class - is applicable to the everyday.
In another class led by the same teacher, she talked about how we should be present in, and fall madly in love with, each and every moment. We need to learn to love the suffering, because in the next moment it will be gone. Yes, so much yes!
Even though I wasn't like, "Oh heck yes, traffic! I love this shit!" I was determined to make the most out of the inevitable. I accepted, before I even made it to the highway, that I would be sitting in traffic and I would NOT let it alter my post-yoga bliss. Nuh-uh, honey. I was going to jam in my car and I was going to embrace, and love, every second of it - and that's exactly what I did.
Remember these two things:
1. You always have a choice.
2. Be present to, and fall deeply in love with, every. single. moment.