Thoughts from a beachfront café in Montezuma, Costa Rica… 

In 2014 I left my six figure a year job in Abu Dhabi, which was preceded by a 20 year Army career, to begin the next chapter of my life. The beginning of this journey led me to Costa Rica in for a month long 200hr. immersive yoga teacher training program where I ended up taking two back to back 200hr trainings. Little did I know the power yoga had to transform me; five months later I left Costa Rica with my freedom from the 32 year old monster that had consumed my life.

I’m humbled by the opportunity to sum up my experience in written form – many words come to mind. Amazing, humbling, painful, joyful, inspiring, difficulty, strength, fun, friendship, fear – terrifying at times, connection, truth, transformation, triumph, sadness, loneliness, hope, courage, teamwork, vision, dreams. Anytime you immerse yourself in two back to back intensive yoga teacher training programs with 46 new and amazing people something amazing happens in your life. It transforms you.

Besides hundreds of hours on my yoga mat I witnessed huge mudslides during crazy beautiful rainstorms that dumped so much water it seemed the flood gates of heaven broke open. Lightning crashed all around causing power outages more times than I can remember.  I experienced at least two earthquakes, participated in a rescue operation in the pitch black of night in the jungle during my second graduation, and have had exposure to numerous creatures, including meter long iguanas, snakes, and coatimundi on the yoga deck, to bats, and hundreds of geckos (who loved to poop on us during classes, and even more during silent/still meditation periods). Howler monkey encounters via sight and/or sounds were a thing of the norm by the end, as were their loud roars at 5:30 in the morning with the apparent purpose to inform the entire jungle to “WAKE THE HELL UP!”

I saw humpback whales, dolphins, armadillos, hatching baby sea turtles making their way to the ocean, and every kind of insect you could imagine.  I’ve awakened in the morning to an entire army of big black ants covering the entire floor and walls, hundreds of thousands of them.  Apparently I missed their memo that this is the jungle’s way of cleaning out all the other little bugs from the house. The ants leave as fast as they come; locals here are happy when the big black ants come through on their rounds.

I sustained two pretty frustrating injuries, a sprained ankle where I rolled it on a step while deep in contemplation walking in the dark while visualizing my final class sequence during my first training.  The other a thumb sprain during the second week of my second training. It happened in peacock pose (an arm balance) where my elbow slipped off my sweaty torso, causing the weight of my body to crash squarely down on my thumb. To this day I still can’t fully straighten my left thumb.

Part of both trainings involved long yoga philosophy talks. I learned Sanskrit chants and names for yoga poses, and our groups read and discussed many books in depth. During this time I learned about the Chakra system and the subtle level of our being. I learned about Ayurveda, yoga’s sister science and that I’m what’s classified as Pitta/Vata. I sat in many sharing circles with fellow students shedding tears inside and out with them while listening to the most heartbreaking and uplifting of stories.

I spent days in complete…

silence.

I learned how to give a 90 minute Thai Yoga Massage, work with and teach the use of bandhas, or body locks, in a yoga practice.  I learned how to develop and teach well thought out themed classes while offering proper alignment queues, assists, adjustments, and to teach students to safely move their bodies through all the ranges of motion it was designed to move.  I took and taught blindfolded yoga classes, yin classes where we held poses for over eight minutes, and did eye gazing exercises where we had to look into another person’s eyes for 10 minutes straight…It’s amazing, try it sometime. I did a 60 minute Osho “No-Dimension” meditation practice where 23 of us moved in synchronous union doing what could only be described as a slow motion karate sequence for 30 minutes straight, followed by 15 minutes of spinning around in circles, and ending with 15 minutes in Savasana.  I learned pranayama (breathing) exercises, and did daily meditation, working up to an hour straight of silent and still sitting. I participated in several yoga nidra, or yoga sleep, sessions.  During the course of the two trainings I participated in a total of three fire (burning) ceremonies. Fire ceremony number two during the week we spent on the chakras was pretty significant to me, more on that in a bit.

Yes, yes, this story is all going somewhere.

The week on the chakras taught me a lot about myself and how my feelings of being ungrounded, unworthy, unwilling, afraid of change, and closed off had prevented me from more fully and truthfully enjoying life.  It also prompted a lingering need to be vulnerable to others, which continued to burn within me until my feelings could not be contained.

Time went on, days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Time was approaching for my second training to culminate with me teaching my 45 minute solo class.  I was selected to teach last, which seemed to be a fitting spot for me, somehow putting a second bookend on the experience.

On the day of my class the rain started pouring in the morning, it poured more, and then poured more still in a way only the rain pours in the jungle – all day, right up through my class that afternoon. It matched the heaviness I was feeling inside.  Prior to teaching I spent two hours alone on the yoga deck high on the mountain overlooking the dense forest of trees and the ocean as I listened to music to calm my soul. I meditated as the rain poured, and tears streamed down my face as I was overcome with emotions ranging from complete fear to total peace.

It was now time to teach.

The following section of this will include my notes for my final class, including some quotes I found pertinent to what I was trying to teach.  This first section is what I read to the group that had me terrified and sleepless for days.

“Yoga saves lives. It saved mine.  Upon arrival in this group I had no idea I would let my walls collapse so much.  Joining the group two days after you started, I was the new guy and felt a bit disconnected.  Each of your stories has been immeasurably touching; I am in awe of the courage and love I have witnessed within you all. So much so that I cannot, and will not leave this training without being completely raw with you. There are less than ten people in the world that know this. My family and good friends have no idea that for the past 32 years I was in the grip of the eating disorder known as bulimia. For those that don’t know what this is, basically I ate food and threw it up. It has worked to destroy everything about me.  It wreaked havoc both on my physical and emotional self, and on my relationships. It was so bad I have had nearly all of my top teeth replaced…. twice.”

“A few short weeks ago in this hallowed space we gathered together, chanted, played drums, and crumpled up pieces of paper where we had written letters to things we were going to let go of, then threw them in the fire. This monster of an illness is what I threw away once and for all.  I threw away the behaviors, fears and negative emotions that have taken me to the darkest of places. 

During this class it is not my goal to drag you through my shit.  My first wish for you is that you take something away from this whole experience, right here, right now. And secondly, to be able to help others boldly walk into the dark places in their lives. For we cannot teach where we have not been. 

All of us have faced our fears here and overcome obstacles we may have never dreamed possible. While we have learned an enormous amount of meticulous information about the body, how it moves, and how we can assist in that process, the most important thing we will take away from this place and from our beloved teacher is written right on the cover of our manuals.  “Transformational Yoga Program” Let us take from here our own transformation and share it with the world.” 

When I first started practicing yoga one of my teachers talked about four qualities to strive to maintain in our practice on and off the mat.  In Buddhism They are known as the “Four Immeasurables.”

The first of these is Loving Kindness.

In the beginning, many of us come to our mats due to some type of injury, whether it be physical or emotional, in search of something to help fix our broken selves. This is an act of loving kindness.  Equated to a mother hen and her chicks Pema Chodron asks the question “Who am I in this image—the mother or the chicks?” The answer is we’re both: Both the loving mother and those ugly little chicks.”  Our mats are the place we lovingly gift ourselves that space to grow; remember this as you approach your practice.

The second immeasurable is Compassion.

Having compassion for ourselves when we work to face our fears, knowing it will be difficult, and it may hurt, we still carry on, following our hearts.  Pema writes in the book When Things Fall Apart. “I once attended a lecture about a man’s spiritual experiences in India in the 1960s. He said he was determined to get rid of his negative emotions. He struggled against anger and lust; he struggled against laziness and pride. But mostly he wanted to get rid of his fear. His meditation teacher kept telling him to stop struggling, but he took that as just another way of explaining how to overcome his obstacles.  Finally the teacher sent him off to meditate in a tiny hut in the foothills. He shut the door and settled down to practice, and when it got dark he lit three small candles. Around midnight he heard a noise in the corner of the room, and in the darkness he saw a very large snake. It looked to him like a king cobra. It was right in front of him, swaying. All night he stayed totally alert, keeping his eyes on the snake. He was so afraid that he couldn’t move. There was just the snake and himself and fear.  Just before dawn the last candle went out, and he began to cry. He cried not in despair but from tenderness. He felt the longing. “He felt so much gratitude that in the total darkness he stood up, walked toward the snake, and bowed. Then he fell sound asleep on the floor. When he awoke, the snake was gone. He never knew if it was his imagination or if it had really been there, and it didn’t seem to matter. As he put it at the end of the lecture, that much intimacy with fear caused his dramas to collapse, and the world around him finally got through.”

I then led the group through a blindfolded section of the practice. It was truly amazing to witness.

The third immeasurable is Joy.

Pema Chodron, speaking about joy reminds us “We stay with our own little plot of earth and trust that it can be cultivated, that cultivation will bring it to its full potential. Even though it’s full of rocks and the soil is dry, we begin to plow this plot with patience. We let the process evolve naturally.  At the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be. We’ve discovered that the continual search for something better does not work out. This doesn’t mean that there are suddenly flowers growing where before there were only rocks. It means we have confidence that something will grow here.”

The fourth immeasurable is Equanimity.

At first I didn’t understand the meaning of this word, and in fact went home from that practice and looked it up. One definition states “Having an even mind, a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind.” To me it simply means we need to take all things in stride.  In the simplest of examples, there are poses we like, and those we like less. What we must remember is to remain unattached from the either the good or the bad, letting go of expectations of what the outcome ‘should’. It is in embracing all of things our practice begins to grow.

After guiding the class through one of the most amazing experiences of my life, while they were resting closed eyes on their backs, I carefully placed a small piece of wood in each person’s palm. Baz Luhrman’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) streamed through the air while rain was falling in the jungle.

After doing this I sat down cross legged in front of the class and spoke the following words.

“What lies in the palm of your hand is a piece of the yoga deck on which we have spent the past month on together. It is the place we began our journey to become teachers. This piece of wood will mean different things to each one of you. Your hopes and dreams, the sweat you gave, fears you faced, and tears you cried. It might mean laughter, new friendships, maybe sights and sounds, but there is no denying what is at the heart of it all. Love.”

I then had everyone hold the piece of wood between their hands in prayer, and to feel the life inside of it.

 “Some of all of us, as well as hundreds of our kindred yogis exists within the fibers of this wood. While each piece is separate, there is a groove and a raised part on each one. Let this feature remind you that while each piece is separate, they can at any time join together to create something even stronger.”

 

Let us humbly bow to each other, the souls of those we share our yoga with, and to the greatest teacher of them all, our divine self.”

~Namaste”   

And just like that I was free. Today, I am free.  I started healing the day I touched down in Costa Rica. The world is a brighter place in which It is now my turn to commit myself to helping others through the practice of yoga, the union of body and mind.  What lies next? I have no idea, but I know everything will work out exactly how it is supposed to.

 We step onto our mats alone, for everything we need is already inside of us.  I have shared this many times before, but I will end this line from one of my favorite movies – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

“Everything will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it is not yet the end.”

Note: It’s now 2019 and since then I completed an M.S. in Yoga Therapy and am currently working as a yoga therapist at an Army hospital helping our men and women in uniform in an Integrative Pain Management Clinic in Tacoma, Washington.

 

Photo by Wendy Hickok, one of my dear friends from the training