The Courage to Be
On a crystal clear evening in 2002, while driving home after teaching a yoga class specifically designed to open and embrace the heart chakra, for no apparent, conscious reason, tears started trickling down my face. As if a faucet had been turned on, the tears were now falling from my face, heavily onto my lap, each carrying its own weighted story…resonating with my soul’s essence. NOW, in this moment, please let me share my journey home with you.
Shortly after class, getting into my vehicle, I felt this overwhelming desire to search inside myself. I started to pray, asking Spirit to show me, to tell me, what LOVE is. It was in that moment that my crying turned to weeping. The next thing I consciously became aware of was that the song playing on the radio was called “I want to know what love is” by the group Foreigner. As I continued driving and crying, the song now over, the radio announcer came on to tell this wonderful story…
A man who had four wives was dying and he asked each of the wives if they would go to the other side with him—to make the journey through death. Three of the wives said no, we are very busy and we have already made major plans for our lives once you are gone.
The wife who he loved the least and to whom he paid little attention said she would go with him, that she would always be there for him, in fact, had always been there for him.
The first wife he asked is like our body—when we die it leaves
(totally goes back to the earth).
(totally goes back to the earth).
The second wife is like our possessions. They too are gone from us when we die (other people get them).
The third wife is our family and the furthest family members can go with us is to the graveside and then they must carry on with their lives.
The fourth wife, and the one this man loved the least, is our soul. It is the only thing we have forever, the only thing that travels and transcends space and time, and goes with us into eternity.
Immediately, upon hearing that story, I saw a shooting star. As a little girl growing up in the prairies, where the skies are majestically blue and seem to go on forever, I cherished seeing a shooting star, and always made sure to make a wish. Most came true. I won’t tell you what I wished for in that moment, or it won’t come true, but I can tell you that prior to the story on the radio and seeing that falling star, there was deep fear and sadness in my weeping. The yoga session had opened my heart chakra and I was now praying to God for the answer, to know what love is.
At that moment, I stopped the jeep I was driving. Weeping like never before, when the tears stopped, I felt and realized my crying had changed from the emotion of fear to the emotion of joy. I realized my prayer had been answered. |
I realized I did know what love is (I am love) and I have love in my life—my daughter, true friends, my yoga, my yoga instructor (Sandra Sammaratino), my students who continually teach me, my creativity, my projects and so much more.
In that moment, like the shooting star falling rapidly to earth, I had fallen on my knees into prayer: my journey home was to DIVINE LOVE (myself). The moment was surreal; it was an epiphany. I had re-connected to the source.
It was after this experience that I realized, more than ever before, that there is definitely no such thing as coincidence. I recently had put together a course called THROUGHTIME YOGA. The reason it is called THROUGHTIME YOGA is because, as we go through life, we get stuck in moments of time. Sometimes we stay in those moments for hours, days, weeks, months or years. Then something or someone comes into our life and we wake up to another level of consciousness, transcending the last moment. THROUGHTIME YOGA works very specifically and intentionally on our chakras and their emotion(s), so we can thaw frozen moments, the shadows and emotions that kept us stuck.
This was certainly true for me. Two weeks prior to Christmas of 2001, my fiancée came home and told me that I had been downgraded from fiancée to girlfriend and that his clients, family and friends already had been told. I was the last one to be told. The fifth chakra’s shadow emotion, which is abruptness, was certainly on his menu. No wonder the Bible states that the tongue can be a two-edged sword. It can either cut us open or heal us—it is all about our intention and the “direction” of our chosen words.
Then he sat me down, giving me a list of 10 reasons why the status of the relationship had changed, one of which was that he was afraid he would lose all his possessions and the new home we were building (the home I had just spent 6 months designing and decorating).
He then stated I had a couple of days to find a place and that, of course, he would help me find a place to live and help me financially until I was back on my feet. However, he would be in complete control of all the money I made (because being a financial advisor he knew what was best).
Yoga was the next thing he mentioned. He said I would have to stop studying/teaching because other men were there and, additionally, there was no money to be made as a yoga instructor. (Could this be a perfect example of someone with an imbalance in his chakra system?) Lust, anger, greed, pride and attachment are human qualities that result from the imbalance of the eight energy centres called the chakras.
Stuck in a moment, I had made the relationship my life by allowing my heart to rule my head and by not allowing my sixth chakra (intuition) to truly be my guide. I had let go of my personal power and my relationships with my daughter, friends and higher self. Also gone was my physical home and passion for my soul’s purpose.
Well, Spirit (my higher self) certainly had something else in mind for my higher good but during that time, when my being was stuck in a moment that felt like endless death, I couldn’t see it.
The room started to spin and my solar plexus (third chakra) felt like it had just been kicked. I didn’t know whom I was or where to go. Through my choices, I had to live the consequences. I asked him if I could use the car to run some errands, telling him that on my way out I would throw out the garbage. Throwing the garbage into the disposal container, the bag dropped with a thud. I knew I would not be back. I never returned. (My sixth chakra, intuition, took over.) I spent that night at a friend’s, literally being ill for hours.
Two nights later, I was in a major car accident that punctured my spleen, (the third chakra). Now, not only did I have to heal my heart (fourth chakra), but also my spleen (third chakra). Through all this, I came to recognize that all my chakras were out of balance and my aura (eighth chakra) was like a bird’s feather that had been clipped and was hanging down. In other words, my aura needed fluffing up.
Though I had no physical home, car, work—only a body in pain—my soul knew I had yoga and an incredible, authentic instructor of yoga. I diligently and faithfully attended as many yoga sessions as possible and kept visualizing the colors of the chakras, seeing the energy swirl around the specific areas |
they’re located. I also took the word VICTIM and turned it into a very positive meaning and that is V=VERY, I=IMPORTANT, C=CALLING, T=TO, I=INSIDE, M=MYSELF. I used this experience of trauma as an opportunity to renovate my soul and undertake the very important calling to look inside myself. Through all of this, and much more, came THROUGHTIME YOGA.
It is only through time that we come to realize how important going back to the basics really is.
In his wonderful book, How Do You Know When It’s God?, author Dan Wakefield talks about how the practice of yoga helped enhance his growing Christian faith during a time of crisis: “In going to yoga, in trying to pray through the flesh rather than words, I felt like I was going back to the basics, going back to find the spirit.”
That is exactly what happened to me. Through my crisis I kept doing yoga, no matter what else life turned up. I went inside, where I was able to associate back into my body, and through time re-connected to Spirit and my higher self (Divine Love). And, so it is—AMEN!
Colli Christante