Alice Speaks: A Girl, Some Yoga, and Redemption

I am honored to be a guest blogger, writer, and person on the Wonder With Institute page.  Anna and I have shared and shaped each other’s worlds for 7 years plus and just as much as I have been her yoga teacher she has been my “human” teacher – she tells it like it is and continues to peel away the layers of her experience that stand in the way of her awesomeness!

I pondered and thought hard about what to share and was going to write something pithy and current when I stumbled upon a story in the cobwebs of my Microsoft documents.  You will now read the edited version – it’s a story about a girl, some yoga, loss, gain and well, redemption!

And so it begins…

Everyone has her story.  

The story usually starts with something like,  “Once, when I was a drug addict”, or “Once, when I was overweight”, or “Once, when I was tossed out and left for dead”…you get the picture.  These stories are important to share.  However, there is another story to be told, a story that is very common and somewhat invisible.

 Drum roll please…

It’s the story of the Perfect Life.  The story where it looks like it is all working out.  The happy or at least not awful childhood, the loving parents, the groovy marriage, the financial success story, the “it all looks good on paper” life.  Yet, if you read between the lines, the heroine is dying a slow death of losing her joy and her life spirit.  At the end of the story, the heroine is left to her own devices, trying to figure out where she “went” wrong even though she believed she was doing everything right.

You know this person.  The householder, the person who lives a good life but is not quite satisfied.  The person who knows that gratitude is the way to go and yet cannot muster up the energy to be thankful.  With this as the backdrop, a low-grade dissatisfaction becomes the normal experience and daily unhappiness goes unnoticed. The person becomes numb to themselves, to the people around them and end up going to their grave with the proverbial question, “what was it all for and why”?  Final gasp, curtain down.

Well, as you may have guessed, I was that person. The rub is that I didn’t know I was leading an unconscious life.  I truly believed if I played by the rules, I would get the life I wanted or that I was supposed to have.  If I was good, I’d be liked, if I did drugs, I’d be cool, if I got married, I’d be complete, if I had a child, I would feel needed, if I stopped doing drugs, I’d be spiritual.  If I said and did the right thing, God (read: Higher Power) would give me what I needed to get the things I wanted to lead a comfortable life that would lead to more unconscious living.

It wasn’t until I started to take my yoga discipline seriously, and by that I mean practicing for over 10 years and then one day deciding to practice everyday for a year, that I slowly began to snap out of it.  AND, I will add that it took me 53 years to get to that place; the place where I began to understand the discipline of discipline.  Before I hit that 10 year mark, I even used my yoga discipline as an “Alice improvement plan”.   I thought if I did it enough (the triple type A approach) I would get better.  I thought it would make me a better person, because I needed to be fixed, and by the way, so do you!  Or, I’ll practice when “I” know it’s right because “I am so in touch with my feelings” approach.  If I could do it my way as opposed to committing to an actual discipline and even open a yoga studio, it would all work out A OK.  

Boy was I WRONG!  But, in the best way possible.

Through the discipline of my yoga practice I am beginning to understand the famous quote by the famous yogi Pattabhi Jois, “practice and all will come.”  And, by the way, there is no one way that all will come.  Yoga is a personal journey of mystery, transformation, breakdown, breakthrough, blood, sweat and tears.  The yoga journey is the path that leads us back to our humanity.

Over the last 2 years, I have had a yoga studio, almost lost a yoga studio, and then built a new studio.  I have been elated, terrified, exhausted, ashamed, depressed and then some.  I tried to fix it, justify it, name it, judge it, evaluate it, give a name and avoid it. I did everything and have done everything EXCEPT give up my discipline of yoga.  And by that I mean the down and dirty practice, no music, no lights, no fancy pants stuff, and no mixing it up.  Just the same old shit, day in and day out, and I can tell you this:

I love my life!  I have a strong body and a spirit that is peeking out behind the curtain, open to the possibility of light, love and faith.  I feel strong and connected while simultaneously feeling it could all slip away at any moment.  It’s my yoga discipline - the relentless ongoing quality of the boring day-to-day grind - that has revealed to me the joy in the everyday quality of life and the access to seeing the spirit of this joy in the people I meet.  I don’t care if I lose everything tomorrow because my yoga discipline has given me everything that I will ever need.

My yoga has given me my LIFE and for that, I will be forever grateful. 

- Alice Riccardi
portlandpoweryoga.com