If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what would it be? And would you want that advice to be taken, potentially altering the course of your life? After my trip down memory lane the other day while cleaning out the yoga studio, I began to go even farther back. Trying to remember all the different versions of me. Pondering what I would say to my 16 year old self. Or my 25 year old self.
At 16…..
I was doing what teenagers are supposed to do. I was asserting my independence. I dyed my hair black. I got my eyebrow pierced. I thought I knew everything. I was so smart and ready to take on the world. All this and I’d never left my small town, with three stop lights, in rural Nebraska.
At 20…..
I was two years into college and I took a year off from school — a gap year I suppose. I had just called off the wedding with my high school sweetheart. Maybe I didn’t know *all* the things just yet, but I was definitely making some good choices. Despite the heartache it caused, I cannot imagine how my life would have turned out had I gone through with it.
That same year, 9/11 happened and I enlisted in the military. The Air National Guard to be exact. Technically I had planned to join before 9/11. I was scheduled for the medical exam and other testing on September 12th, 2001. The appointment got pushed back, but the events of that day just reaffirmed my decision to enlist. The whole experience (all 6 years of it), definitely opened up my eyes to a world I didn’t know existed.
Valuable lessons learned that year to be sure.
At 24…..
I had just finished nursing school. I was a bright eyed new grad, a sponge ready to absorb everything the world of the NICU had to teach me. I learned a lot about life. And a lot about death (I can still remember the name of the first patient of mine who died). And about all the good and bad in between.
At 25…..
I started travel nursing. Because I totally knew everything I needed to after one year as a nurse. I moved from Nebraska to Miami for a 12 week contract. I stayed for 17 weeks. My second contract took me to Baltimore. My third was going to take me to California for the winter. Instead, I met my future husband at the start of that second assignment in Baltimore. I extended that contract. I took a full time job at Johns Hopkins Hospital. 15 years later I still live in the DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia area) and I never made it to California.
At (almost) 30…..
I became a mom. And about 2 years later we welcomed our second child to the family. If parenting teaches you anything, it’s that you really don’t know very much. Most of it is just flying by the seat of your pants, desperately trying not to screw your kids up for life.
At 33…..
I found yoga. I had taken classes before this, but this was the beginning of a consistent practice. It happened at a time when I probably needed it the most, and truly before I understood how powerful and life changing it was going to be. I had a 3 year old and an 18 month old. Life. Was. Crazy. I was pretty close to my first (and thankfully only) panic attack and official diagnosis with anxiety. I’m not going to say that yoga “saved” me, but it certainly gave me the tools and the patience to deal with all the things in my life (real and perceived) at the time.
At 37…..
I inadvertently started a second career. If I could tell the version of me from 3 years ago where I would be right now, I wouldn’t believe myself. I was JUST starting yoga teacher training. I didn’t want to teach. I just wanted to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the practice and the tradition. However, I found out that I LIKED teaching. So much so that I built the business and created my own opportunities to continue to practice teaching. And the business itself just keeps growing and expanding in ways I never imagined!
At (almost) 39…..
Eighteen months ago, the pandemic changed everything I thought I knew about my life and about how I could exist in the world. Oh boy. If I could talk to that version of me, she would laugh in my face about the things I’m doing now. The possibilities and the doors that have opened up because the world shut down. I teach online now. I have students in person with me while simultaneously teaching on zoom and/or IG live. I troubleshoot tech issues (usually without batting an eye). I have let go of the worry and concern that my children may scream and run around like elephants overhead during savasana. It’s mind blowing.
Now, at 40…..
I don’t know what I don’t know. But I know there is a LOT left to learn. And I operate under the assumption that I know nothing. A far cry from the version of me 24 years ago who had experienced nothing, but thought she knew everything.
And the thing is, I wouldn’t change anything. I had to live all those things. I had to believe in the version of the world I knew at the time. I had to make those choices and learn all those lessons. I had to happen upon those same people in those same places at the times that I did, in order to get to THIS version of me. Those other versions still exist in my memories, and they are the building blocks of who I have become. If I took those things away, I wouldn’t be the “me” I am today. And I kinda like where I’m at now. And it took all 40 years worth of life and experiences and choices and lessons to get here.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
