My Yoga Community

Flamingos are community types.  They have a gregarious nature, and they love to party.  In the wild, flamingos gather in large flocks. This serves to protect them from their predators - large vulture-like birds - that can swoop down and take their young.  Flamingos need a long runway, but when they do fly, they paint the sky.

When I left my corporate life behind in June 2011, I was immediately on the outside looking in.  My fishbowl friends swam on without me.  The corporate world to which I belonged was no longer mine. I had to find another pond.

My daughter suggested that I find a new community.  Quite honestly, I had no idea what that meant.  Had I ever been part of a community?  Did I even know what that would look like?

I got busy trying connect with other people who I thought I would have something in common with.  I joined business groups for women and started attending events and functions. But I never felt a connection. I remember going to events and feeling like I had to have some magnificent offering in order to be part of the group but alas I had none.  I was a flamingo without a flock.

My yoga practice had largely taken place in my own home studio.  I started attending classes in the community regularly at various studios. I just wanted to be same room with other people with a common interest.

In a yoga class, I never felt the need to be noticed.  I never felt like I had to bring something special to the group in order to belong. I never felt like a flamingo without a flock.  Quite often, I would practice with my eyes closed, guided by the sensation of movement and the sound of my teacher's voice.

In the process of finding my yoga, I found a community that is beyond the scope of time and place.  This community does not have an agenda, nor is it impressed by anything that I can do or bring.  This community is one that is older than time and larger than any one person. There are common values, a language and principles but these are not imposed, they are lived. The practitioner can take whatever he or she likes from it, and leave the rest behind, and still be accepted.

In my quest to find a place to belong, instead I found a place that just accepts me for who I am so that I have the space to explore whatever that means.

That's my yoga and my community.