Inspiration ebbs and flows in all of us. Sometimes we are excited by new challenges in life, and sometimes we are overwhelmed by "adulting." I'm constantly telling my yogis to find joy in every day, even in the mundane. I've mastered finding folding laundry and washing dishes pleasant, but finding joy has been a bit more difficult. I love baking and cooking, but I hate cleaning up afterwards. Why cook or bake only to leave myself with piles of dirty dishes and a messy floor? Ugh.
I've started teaching more yoga classes; I'm up to more than 10 per week on average. I'm teaching little kids, which is new. I'm teaching in different spaces, like onstage at a high school auditorium. I've met new, interesting people with gripping life stories and hilarious personalities. Yet, I've lost my own yoga practice. I spend 10+ hours a week teaching yoga, and all teachers (no matter what you teach) know how much planning goes on behind he scenes for just one hour of class. Plus, I have to travel to each class. It's exhausting.
One of the reasons why I took on some extra classes was because my fellow yoga teacher RH delivered her daughter prematurely at 25 weeks this summer. I took over two of her classes while at the same time losing one of the main "substitute" teachers I have in case I need a day off. RH's baby girl thrived despite arriving early, and RH came back to work. Here she is with me on her first day back in September.
A few weeks after RH came back to work, she got the news that her baby was ready to come home from the hospital!! So, back I went teaching her classes for her while she was off being supermom. I along with her students missed her but knew she was where she needed to be: home with her toddler and newborn.
About the same time RH was bringing her new baby home from the hospital I was also bringing my new baby home...only my new baby has four legs and fur. His name is Archie.
Just a few weeks after bringing her baby home, RH was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.
Yes, I said the same thing out loud that you just said in your head when you read that: What the fuck? This vibrant, easy going, beautiful new mom is about to have her life turned upside down. Again. Unlike pretty much everyone else who was filled with tears and expressions of sympathy, RH has henceforth decided to carry on each day with this attitude:
So, what is one to do when it feels like life is just a cycle of work, pay bills, die? What is one to do when the fountain of inspiration has dried up because adulting is just too taxing and mundane?
Let's start here: October is breast cancer awareness month. I'll be damned if I'm not fully aware of breast cancer after having two very young, vibrant female friends diagnosed in 2015. Of course being the person that I am I immediately start fighting imaginary battles of my own: got a cough this morning? Cancer. My stomach hurts? Cancer. Joints achy? Cancer.
But what would my friends fighting real battles say? Cancer? Cancer ain't got nothin' on them. Cancer can attack their bodies; chemo can leave them tired and hurting and hairless. I type these next words with all seriousness and admiration: when I look at these women I don't see the cancer hiding inside them. I see their spirits cheering everyone on and saying, "Don't be sad for me! Be joyful with me!"
Excitement does not always come in the form of vacations or a new car or a new project at work. Sometimes excitement comes as cancer. That saying, "same shit, different day" isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? That mundane life you have, those dishes you have to wash, that morning commute to work, those endless days of running kids around to practice...that should be where you find your inspiration. Why expect inspiration to come knocking at your door? You may not like what knocks.
PS: Fuck cancer.
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