Impact of Yoga on My Life

When I first started yoga, I was curious about why Swami insisted on yoga as a path to my own answers. I stayed alert in the yoga class, mostly because I was a self-proclaimed fitness instructor who was looking at making some money out of the fitness industry. I immediately got captivated by the way the teacher taught the class. Being a self-taught acrobat turned “teacher”, I was pretty good at poaching ideas from different sources and this, I was planning on stealing for sure. I listened carefully to the words of the teacher and one thing that stuck with me was the reference he made from the physical pose into our lives. He said, “consider that how you show up on your mat is exactly how you show up in your life.”Yep that landed heavy at first and I almost missed it but I am glad I got it. Your physical foundation in the pose could be equated to a foundation in anything you undertake in life; from education, relationships, work/career etc. The more grounded I am, as in the more connected I am to my why (my foundation) the more I am guaranteed of a good outcome. Et that one sink for a moment. Same applies to a building, the foundation of a building will determine how high it can go and its durability. If you were to choose between sand and rock, you will with no doubt want to build your house on a rock and not on a rock. These teachings have for a long time stayed with me and have guided me into significant turns and milestones in my life ever since.

All these years as I worked as a professional acrobat in Kenya, I did not keep any records of my earning and or budget for anything. I ask myself how then did I expect to make informed decisions without anything to refer to? Something you think would be common sense. Nope, common sense is not very common after all. You see, these things like life skills 101 are not taught in schools and in institutions my friends. Well, at least not in the schools and institutions that I attended. And if they are, then they weren’t drummed in well enough to have a lasting effect. Without records, I was literally flying blind. All I did was rely on:

a) luck

b) friends in high places

c) managers and agents to find us work. I did not see my part in me getting anything done except for my practice/rehearsals in my career. What I also failed to understand or see was that, how you do anything is how you do everything. Even in my rehearsals where I thought I gave it all, I came to realize I only did just enough to secure a job and just enough to get paid enough to keep me going.

This went on for a whole 12 years. We did earn some good money in some years. We then ended up spending most of it, if not all by the time another job/gig came through. This happened again and again. Somebody once said, if you did the same thing over and over and expected different results, you are insane. I must have been insane to say the least, we all are at some point in life I guess.

What I got from yoga, is the discovery of how much of a visual learner I am. Through my physical practice of yoga, I learnt to relate that to my life and slowly and painstakingly started to realize the practical steps I needed to take to get the results that I wanted. From this space I created an inquiry around my life which then led to a certain way of thinking. I stopped the blame game and realized that I had created and molded my life exactly the way it was. I had been a victim for a long time. A victim of my own making. I realized for the first time how I loved and bought into my own stories of why things did not happen for me the way they happened for others.

I looked at myself for the first time as an entity, an empire in which I was the King and or the president. I thought and saw myself as I failed state. I was the president who held many other departments in my own country. I was the finance minister, the procurement officer, the general manager and any other portfolio deemed necessary in running my country successfully. The question I asked myself was; As the president of the country, was it possible to run the country that has no records of any kind? I needed to have a good report from my finance minister and all other department. But above all, the financial report was critical to my economic decisions. If I held a meeting with my finance minister and he told me that the report he had for me was in his head. I would fire him right there and then. I will NOT tolerate such nonsense, not on my watch.

Therefore, as a country I will demand that a clear record of all the finances was kept and updated from time to time and nothing would be left to chance. From the procurement department which basically from an individual stand point would mean a clear budget on the daily expenditures and standard monthly expenditures.

This would then help me as a leader of this “country” called me. To make informed decisions and choices about my lovely country is dependent on the information and or data available to me. I would do anything to move this country forward in terms of taking care of its people. Complete coverage of basic needs from shelter, food, clothing, medical needs and transport among others. This was my wakeup call and it moved me from waiting for help from agents, friends and luck and started taking action. At the time, it was about finding private classes that would then make the transition from active performance into teaching yoga a reality. I worked hard as a teacher to gain experience and confidence. The most work was on myself, developing an understanding of how to be the best student that I can be and how to show up fully in my own life. With this new revelation somehow, I attracted people who were like minded. I found a mentor through my affiliation with the Africa yoga project, the studio and organization that I give credit to who I am today. Suzie Newcome mentored me and took me through this very critical moment of self-realization and discovery. Identifying that which was in support and in alignment with what I stood for., dropping all else that did not serve me and my course. Yoga found me, I would say at the right time in my life. In Kenya just like in many African countries I believe, we have different classes or status, the rich or high class, the upper middle, middle, upper low class, low class, the poor and poor slum dwellers or ghetto peeps. Something tells me I belonged to the poor category but am not entirely sure and I will say this in public though, so please don’t ask me. In these categories, there are things that were common place and regarded differently depending on where you are. A good example was smoking of kaya, cannabis, weed or the herb as people from my locality would call it. It would be a luxury to somebody from the high class and upper middle. To the poor this was a necessity. Life would hit you so hard you want to find a way to hide from it. Away of numbing out as my teacher Baron called it. The rich and middle class will drink alcohol in bars and the poor will partake local brew, which some will end up blinded by it. As a result of fake scientists who are failed school drop outs now experimenting with human beings as guinea pigs.

Those of us who knew this and did not want to take chances with local brew, decided to stick with the natural herb which is hardly tempered with. We would smoke and listen to a lot of reggae music blasting in our small 10 by 10 feet single rooms in our low/poor class quarters and nobody would bother us. When you met with cops, they would take from you the little cash you have on you, which will not be much just a couple of hundred shillings and sometimes including your small stash of marijuana so they could help themselves later and will let you go. The same cops if they met the middle class and the rich, they would extort big amounts moneys from them. With the threat of taking them to jail and make them friends so they would take money from them every now and then, and call them customers. We would easily choose marijuana/ herb over food anytime even when it made you feel hungrier, depending on the quality and where it came from. The western Kenya and Kisii or one from Ethiopia called Shashamani, with a street name Shash. The shash was expensive and not common here. This is just to mention but a few of the blends available. This was a booming business in these regions and cheap too. With ksh 10 or a cent I think you had a joint and good to go.

With the herb we would drown our sorrows. Numbing ourselves, or simply knock yourself out till you feel hungry enough to go look for food. Baron knew this because he had dealt with our kind, ie people from the low class, poor/slums of Kenya and knew that this is how we roll. He also understood that this is the way we knew how to handle life in these difficult conditions. Baron accepted the idea of bringing free yoga to the Kenyan youth because he saw the need. Paige Elenson the director of Africa yoga project saw this and couldn’t think of any other way but this. To bring hope to these youths and people who were lost but were fighting the best way they knew how. We needed somebody who would understand us and not condemn. Somebody who was willing to work with them and show them an alternative way as opposed to criticizing and labeling them as failures. Together in our teacher training we discussed the downside of the herb. The disadvantages of numbing out and how this stole from us as opposed to adding value to our lives. Firstly, because it is an illegal drug in Kenya. This made us vulnerable to the law. Hiding becomes your thing and you want to keep company of the people we knew, our own peers mostly. This was where the problem was. We did not meet with people with different mindset that would change our perspective in life. We did not challenge ourselves. We became anti-social and very selective of whom to associate with. We became comfortable with our status. We consoled ourselves that it was okay to be in this class, negating our responsibilities and not taking accountability of our actions and inactions. We leant about integrity and how our word bound us. How nothing works without integrity. How being true to others also means being true to ourselves and staying away from that which does not conform to the laws of the land. In these discussions we saw very quickly how this was working against us and not supporting our goals in life. We saw how for any advancement there has to be some adjustments and this meant change. Change is inevitable, negative or positive, it was bound to happen and we had to choose between whom we were being and who wanted to be.

This is the way I started to eliminate and peel away the unwanted layers to expose and to see myself and my situation for what it was. I was a fraud, I had lied to myself over and over and had gotten addicted to the lie.

In good time I started keeping a consistent financial record and putting my goals down on paper. This was a way to see fruits of the practice of what I had come to learn about creating great habits. Great habits that help bring the results we are looking for. Making informed decisions and choices that followed came easy due to availability of information. This as you can imagine has brought things to where they are today. I am headed far beyond where I was a few years back. I have made a great leap in a few years more than I made in the many years from the beginning of my career. This is how beneficial yoga has been to me.