Tag: journey

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Inspiration for Creating Your Community: From Running to Yoga

The majority of my career has been spent in fields where diversity is lacking: travel/tourism, public relations/marketing and yoga. Despite the limited number of professionals who look like me, I’ve managed to create a network of contacts, associates and friends who understand the unique challenges people of color face in our shared industry.

Yoga, both as a community of practitioners and as a career, is facing a critical review. Many students feel a sense of otherness while in studio. And while you can find many photogenic yogis on Twitter and Instagram, it’s not likely that you will find a brown or black face among the well-known teachers and leaders at yoga conferences and events. Yoga may bring to mind peace, love and good feelings, but it’s also a business and a billion dollar industry. It’s hard to get excited about investing in an fitness environment that prices you out and doesn’t embrace you when you do venture into a class.

Knowing the challenge of representation in the yoga community, the growth of running clubs started and run by African American men and women has given me hope for what could happen to yoga. Groups like Black Girls RUN!, Black Men Run and Run2Live created multi-city communities from people who felt unwelcome in mainstream running clubs but still wanted to participate in the sport. Black Girls RUN! has been on my radar for about a year now. While they’re runs are far too early for my blood (seriously, what does 4:45 a.m. look like?), I have friends who swear by the camaraderie of the group, clocking multiple-mile runs two to three times per week.  The same high they get, heels pounding the pavement and sweat flying while they surpass personal records and create memories, is what I’d like to see created for men and women of color in yoga.

Now that I’ve made the comparison, I will point out that yoga is a different beast. For starters, most people practice yoga in a studio, which can be a restrictive cost. Running starts at walking, which requires minimal equipment (shoes, hat, iPod for music). Issues about costs can be addressed by offering classes at a reasonable rate in the communities that aren’t being exposed to yoga. Additionally, the running groups participate in races, which is another layer of satisfaction – who doesn’t love the thrill of a race and getting a medal? Yoga typically isn’t associated with competition or awards. By setting and achieving individual and group goals, yoga can create that feeling of accomplishment that some derive from running.

I was lucky enough to be in a certification course with two other Black women. I’ve kept in touch to learn more about their experiences of being a student and in finding a place to be a leader. The USA Today article and the founders of the running groups have inspired me to create a network of independent and in-studio teachers of color. Though Dallas is not considered a major hub like an Atlanta, NY or DC, the city is fitness-focused and greater visibility of black and brown yogis can bring additional people into the fold.

What is the multicultural yoga community like in your city? Do you see a unity like the running groups, or is it more disjointed? What are you doing to create a more inclusive community?

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Visibility Matters: On Practicing Yoga While Black

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With one week until I begin the 200-hour teacher training, I’ve been reflecting on how I will use my practice to make a difference. Should I volunteer to teach? Will I join a smaller studio to lead classes on evenings and weekends? In all my thinking, I must have put something out in the universe. And the universe is telling me that I need to be visible, whatever I do.

Last month, The Atlantic posted a story that was sure to get my click: “Why Your Yoga Class Is So White.” Though the studio I attend can boast a slightly more culturally and age diverse group of practitioners, I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to state that when most people think of yoga, they picture a skinny, ponytailed white woman, able to bend and stretch into impossible positions. A 2012 Yoga Journal study cited in the article states that more than four-fifths of Americans yogis are white. The article goes on to talk about studios and instructors who are working to change this percentage by offering low-cost yoga in underserved communities. As a product of an underserved community (shout out to Southwest Houston), the reference to the role religiosity plays as the preferred method to improve health (greater than meditation or yoga) resounds with me. More often than not, we attended Bible study, worship services or another activity at the church as frequently as I now attend yoga classes. While I would not say that yoga practice has replaced my religious practice, I do find similarities between the two in the repetition of mantras and routines, charismatic leadership and group assembly.

Much has been made of Black American women and lack of prioritization of physical fitness. According to the Office on Women’s Health in the Department of Health and Human Services, 4 of 5 Black women are overweight or obese. As the daughter of a mother who struggled with her weight and imparted the need for wellness to me and my sister from an early age, I’ve managed to avoid any weight-related issues, in part due to my yoga practice. By being visible and discussing how yoga supplements my weight and aerobic training, I’m setting an example to my niece and other young women.

The second article to discuss the lack of diversity in yoga came from Forbes. I’d summarize this as the discussion of the “Columbising” of yoga by the West, first the British and then Americans. The separation of the physical practice from the mental practice of meditation is not a facet of yoga that I’d ever considered before. However, after recalling some of the obviously competitive people I’ve had the pleasure of being next to in class, this makes sense. The focus on a wholistic yoga practice, one which includes the exploration of the history and principles of the practice, understanding the body and exploring mediation, is part of the reason why I signed up for the teacher training.

I write all this to say that I recall the feeling of being the only person in my class, and how it required me to get outside of my comfort zone and where I thought I belonged. That sense of not belonging gave way to a more peaceful, less stressed version of myself as I deepened my practice. Becoming an instructor allows me to be part of breaking the mental and visual barrier, one that keeps men and women from discovering the healing properties of yoga. This will be on my mind as I take my first step on the mat as a student next week, and will guide me for the subsequent eight weeks.

For some inspiration, check out the following social accounts: Black Yoga Superstars and Hippie Heathen.

Photo courtesy of Dave Rosenblum via Flickr

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My Next Adventure: Yoga Certification

There is a saying that I’ve seen for years but only recently come to understand: “If your dreams doesn’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.” Once I made the decision, or the decision was made for me, to stop letting my work contribute only to the bottom line of other people, I truly got this phrase. Fear can be a big motivator; it can move you forward or it can keep you in one place. Once I got the swift kick in the tail that made me reevaluate my career trajectory and start looking at additional streams of income, I used any residual fear to move me forward.

With a bit of fear and a lot of excitement, I am super happy to tell you that I signed up for the 200-Hour Training Program with Sunstone Yoga Academy. The classes at Sunstone are what kept me sane and in phenomenal shape for the past 18 months, and the philosophy of their teaching resonates with me. I want to learn how to instill the feeling of peace and the ability to leave stress on the mat that I receive after every class with others. So, I’m taking my first step.

Clearly, I don’t mind being “different.” One goal in doing this, aside from learning more about my yoga practice, is to expand the visibility of African American yoga practitioners. While I know several women who integrate yoga into their exercise program, some view it as an Eastern practice at odds with Western Christian practices. I want to change those minds and help them discover a new way to keep the body and mind healthy.

I’ll be detailing my progress on here (because, of course I will) once the training begins next month. Until then, if you’re in the Dallas area, check out Sunstone (if you’re near the Skillman Live Oak location, holler at me so we can meet up). Are you a yogi (or aspiring to be a yogi)? What do you enjoy the most about your practice?

Early in my practice, last summer.
Early in my practice, last summer.
Yoga Photos 2
Look at that concentration 🙂
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Missing My (Blogging) Anniversary

On Saturday, it hit me like a sack of bricks….I’ve been blogging for two years and completely missed my anniversary. In my youth, those kinds of milestones – one month, six months, a year – mattered much more because I held my relationships so close. Aging, work and other obligations and general forgetfulness (must pick up that ginkgo biloba) has made it so only birthdays and holidays stand out for me, and I even put my boyfriend’s birthday a month later for the first year of our relationship.

When I first started this blogging thing, I had just begun graduate school. I was all wide eyed and excited about furthering my education. Today, as a “veteran” of research and cranking out papers on a regular basis, I feel like that weathered lone gun who speaks only cryptic sentences around the ever-present toothpick between my teeth as I recline in the back corner of class. I’m only six hours from finishing, so close I can smell the knowledge emanating from the graduation robe and see the free nights and weekends like I was thinking of switching phone carriers.

I would also say that I’ve gotten much more personal over the years. In the last six months alone, I’ve talked about my career diversion, taking on a career coach and my faith. The center of my life has shifted from work to personal fulfillment as I came to realize that earning a paycheck didn’t mean much if you had to grit your teeth to get through the day. I like and need all my back teeth folks. Still working on finding my intersection of “total job satisfaction” and “adequate pay for work” but worrying about the journey won’t get me there any faster.

Anyway, I just had to write through my astonishment that my online journaling has been going on this long, and my excitement in seeing my thoughts, inspiration and maturation in the form of my written thoughts. Thank you for being part of this thing, when you’ve left comments, subscribed or even just perused a few posts. You rock my socks, and I appreciate you. Namaste.

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My Life: A Change Done Came

I am a private person. I like being a private person. After learning through trial by fire that if you want something to remain your secret, you tell no one, I curated a small group of confidants. Even within that group, I’m private. So this post is kind of a big deal for me. I was inspired to share this after my mom and I sat down to Easter/birthday brunch last week and she told me in her sage, Yoda-like way, “You have a gift with words, and you need to share it. You don’t know how your story will affect others.”

So here it goes: my transition that I’ve alluded to in previous posts is that I’m between jobs.

Even typing that makes me cringe. Ever since I could legally hold a job, I’ve worked. It’s part of my identity, connected to my self-given purpose. I remember clearly going to pick up my checks – yes, that paper slip that conferred moneys before the ubiquitous direct deposit most of us use now – and how it felt to have funds to put gas in my tank and get me some grub on the go. Ahh, the days of simpler needs.

Now, to be without a place between 9 and 5 is a supremely foreign feeling. This is not to say I’m not doing anything. I’d been preparing for a change for a while, feeling that God was leading me elsewhere. I stayed prayerful, started making contacts and thought about my purpose and passion. I had quite the reality check from my inner circle when I began to stress about bills and if I could buy my first house this year. The statement affected me deeply, and it’s become my thinking: You are a child of the Most High, why do you have so little faith of the great things He has prepared for you?

The past month restored me. I didn’t realize how much I was internalizing my stress, thereby blocking my creativity and personal drive for success. I’ve been reading for my own enjoyment again. I have a growing wish list of inspirational books on Amazon and the fact that spring is coming doesn’t hurt. As an April baby, and after experiencing a true winter once I moved to north Texas, spring has a magic. The dry and cracked branches suddenly burst forth with white, pink and yellow blooms, the temperatures produce a warming effect that has everyone walking a bit lighter and all the bleakness of the previous season is left behind to nourish the harvest of the next.

It feels like I’m in my spring, blossoming and growing. I’d love to hear about your season of transition, share with me!

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So, Is This Marriage Thing Contagious?

“Just stop…I don’t even want to talk about it.”

We’re sitting at happy hour, all of us young, educated…and unmarried. The topic that has upset my friend is the running list of college friends who have either married, reproduced or both. I merely took a sip of my drink and laughed. Even though I’ve been engaged before, it was more of a formality than a true belief in “happily ever after” and the relationship didn’t pan out. I’m not in a rush, though I know myself well enough to know that marriage is a requirement of any future relationship.

It’s the 27th birthday of one of my sorority sisters, and clearly she’s having a hard time of it. Actually, not really. She, like me, has a sarcastic wit that belies a tender underbelly, and it’s not often she truly shows her emotional undercarriage. She does make a good point though. The wedding and ultrasound posts being shared in our group of friends and associates has reached the critical mass point, and the claustrophobic, though mostly imagined, feeling of judgment is upon us. Does one seek out a beau strictly to fit the norm for what should be happening at this point in life? On what date do you bring up expectations? And what if they don’t have the same long-term goals, what then?

For me and mine, we had the expectations conversation fairly up front. Pragmatism and maturity made it a necessity to get that out in the open. Two years in, and apparently I’m following all of the latest trends: cohabitation before marriage and being highly educated and yet unmarried. (For a counterpoint to the “highly educated and yet unmarried” piece, the latest news says that college-educated women have a better chance at marriage than those who only finished high school.) (Also, good gosh, do NOT search “educated black women and marriage” if you want to believe in your fairy tale ending, that was a depressing result list.) While I understand folks who choose to keep separate households until after the vows were exchanged, I believe in knowing what I’m getting into before signing a contract that is supposedly irrevocable – that includes snoring, cleanliness, fiscal responsibility and the like.

Much like my friend’s reflection on her life and that of her peers in light of her birthday, I have the same circumstances coming up. I was recently chatting online with a male friend who I have known since our halcyon days of undergraduate, when we used to act like our twenties would extend forever into the future in an awesome collection of boring classes, entry level jobs and kicking it for Homecoming every year. He didn’t keep up his end of the bargain though, and our conversation was not about how much we were looking forward to happy hour together, but about how happy he is that his two kids sleep late regularly and that his wife doesn’t know he does a 15-minute rush cleanup before she makes it home. Happy wife, happy life – he learned quickly! It’s the weirdest feeling to consider him as a father and husband, but it’s the reality of his life.

Thankfully, very few people I interact with regularly ask me when me and my boyfriend are getting hitched. They’re smart enough to know that the answer is a blank stare and a subject change. Just like it’s rude to ask a woman if she’s pregnant, it’s equally as rude to inquire about wedding plans. Until I get to that point, and don’t expect that much will change when I do, I plan on avoiding the drinking water sources of the newly pregnant friends and wives of friends, and being happy that I don’t have to schedule sleeping past 7 a.m. on weekends. Sorry I’m not sorry parents!