How different my worlds are now – a good thing for gaining perspective. Santa Fe, my primary home, filled with space and light, and Europe, where I am at the moment, coated in blankets of fog and permeated by the rich smell of water and fallen leaves. It teaches me not to take everything quite so seriously. It reminds me that nothing is permanent, to keep welcoming and making changes, and to allow life to flow through me.
What is foremost on my mind these days is the question of value. How do we value ourselves? How does that value translate to others? What are we willing to do in order to feel valued? How much is my input, versus the rewards I get back?
I guess for me, being almost 50, these are legitimate questions. The times where I had unlimited energy and would just charge ahead, are truly over. At this point, investments versus outcome have to be balanced. For example, it’s clear to me that my primary reward – and that continues to be way more important to me than the monetary return, has to do with actually making a difference in people’s lives. I have worked very hard for a very long time to have the insights I do – and it’s important for me to share them. It’s important that they be received. For this reception, a certain framework has to be laid.
I am keenly aware, these days, between the different types of attention in a public class where people come mostly expecting a good workout, and say, a workshop, where students are more inclined to be open and go on a journey.
Under the right circumstances, I can take people on such a journey of transformation and it is increasingly important to me to set those parameters in a way that allows this to happen.
I have earned my livelihood from public classes for 20 years and in some ways it is truly scary to contemplate to let that format of my teaching go. Yet it is clear that this particular format no longer serves my primary objective – which is to help students remember who they really are and what matters most in their lives.
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