You Can Do Hard Things
As of today, I have officially finished my Yoga Teacher Training with Lifted Lotus Online Yoga School and submitted all my work for review. I have passed all my courses and my final exam. This experience has been great and uplifting for sure. Even so, being fully online was the best way for me to learn.
I decided to attend yoga teacher training after a couple of experiences that just spoke to me about becoming a teacher.
I have been practicing yoga since 1997. I started practicing Hatha yoga when I was pregnant with my daughter, and it truly helped my pregnancy and the delivery, which was a hard one—17 hours, and it took 3 hours of pushing for her to emerge into the world. I feel that all that Pranayama helped me prepare, and the yoga definitely gave me the stamina to keep up!
I ended up finding my first Kundalini yoga teacher by accident; I had seen a flyer at a coffee shop and thought, "I want to see what this is all about." I started to practice with Allen the Yoga Guy (yes, that was his name), and I fell in love with Kundalini—it is the yoga for a busy life!
After some years of doing Kundalini and Allen always talking about the master yogis from way back in California, I decided to go to workshops with Yogi Bhajan in Española, NM. It was hot and dry, and we camped out for 5 days and woke up at 3:00 a.m. to do yoga! I loved learning new things as a student. At that workshop, I received my spiritual name, Siri Ajeet Kaur, which means "The great princess of God who is victorious through all space and time."
When I was hit by a car as a pedestrian in 2011, what got me through it all was my yoga. In fact, I can vividly remember telling myself, "I will do yoga again; I will be able to do it fully." I was in a wheelchair for years, then on a walker for years, and using a cane for more years... Then I was able to live fully without any of those mobility aids, but I will say I never forgot how hard it was. What I did was chair yoga; I used props to help me, and to this day I will still use a prop if I need to.
My overall passion for yoga has spanned 30 years, and I believe all people from all types of bodies with physical limitations can still do yoga. I want to make it accessible and inclusive for all in my community.
As I come to the mat or the chair every day to do my own daily practice, I know that each day can be different. Some days our bodies are more awake and alive; other days we have pain or are stiff. Either way, I am willing to challenge myself to get up and get on that mat or chair every single day.
My question is: what does that look like for you? When you feel something is hard, do you get up and do it anyway, or do you just walk away? I chose to stay and keep on going, and that is why I finally decided to get my yoga certification and take a 250-hour course.
So, in a couple of weeks, I will have my certification in hand for Hatha yoga, Chair yoga, and Restorative yoga, and I will begin teaching several classes a week! This is an accomplishment that has taken me 6 months, but in reality, it's taken me 30 years to complete!
You can do hard things... and do them well 💜