For ten years, I taught a special workshop every January for the Long Island Yoga Association. I was super proud to have been referred by one of my students to this association of yoga teachers and practitioners who would come in the dead of winter to spend 3 hours with me to practice yoga. Attendance was always high, the energy in the room always positive, and everyone, including myself, left feeling fulfilled in body, mind, and spirit.

Despite looking forward to this annual event on my schedule, I would still get quite nervous as I was preparing. Did I have enough material for the long workshop? Would it be good enough? Would I be good enough? 

One year as I was preparing for the workshop and going through my usual litany of worries, I read a passage from Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert about a time she was struggling intensely while preparing a speech. She suddenly realized that the continued struggles were going to affect the speech and the negative energy and anxiety she was experiencing would end up coming along for the ride. This wouldn’t help the audience (or her) because everyone has their own difficulties and there was no need to share these challenges with people who were coming to see her for inspiration.

This made so much sense to me!

So I stepped off my own struggle bus while I was preparing for that workshop and it made the whole experience SO much better. I didn’t need the extra stress I was putting on myself and removing the pressure was a great relief.