Looking at the picture above gives me soothing feeling. Calm, peace, and relax. All the feelings that we tend to forget when we are dealing with our daily life. Too many activities to do, chasing targets, think ... think ... think ... work ... work ... work ... and do ... do ... do ... to achieve something which we think will give meaning to our life.

We forget to take a break, to give our mind and body time to rest. We even work overtime for the reason of productivity or perhaps avoiding things we don't want to face. If we stop and take a break, we would waste our time because time is money. That's what often said by business people. But NO. Taking a break to rest is not a waste of time. In fact it will increase productivity. The mind is clearer and ideas start to flow.

In yoga, we rest in Savasana or Corpse pose. The reason it is named corpse pose is because all you need to do is be still and silent like a corpse. Do you know that savasana is the most important pose in yoga? From the outside it might look like that you are just laying down, but once you try to be silent and still for 15 to 20 mins, it is not that easy for most people because the mind keeps wandering around. Resting in savasana is not the same as resting when we sleep. When we sleep, sometimes our mind is still active through dreams. That is why when we get up in the morning, we do not always feel fresh and energized.

Savasana is a fully deep rest if you do it properly. Meaning you will need props like bolster/pillow/cushions to support your body if you do this at home. Turn off the light to have the room dark or eye cover so our brain would regard it as time to rest. Then just focus on your breathing and feel the ground supporting your whole body. Let the body releases all the tensions with every exhalation. Pay attention to whatever may happen with your breath. Is it short and shallow or deep and long? Do you let go when you are breathing or do you control your breath? Do you enjoy the moment or do you want it to be over soon? Whatever happens on the mat also reflects who we are in our daily life, off the mat. Do we trust and surrender or we tend to control things? Are we patient enough and enjoy being in the present moment or are we impatient and want things to move fast so we can jump into next activity?

Only by this one pose, we can learn about ourselves. What if you do yoga with all the poses? What can you dig deeper about yourself?

I was faced with the biggest decision in my life when I needed to choose between leaving my job as a Montessori teacher or teaching yoga.

I knew that I would be faced with many challenges if I chose to teach yoga. The security of having stable income and perhaps a prestigious job for others. I often heard people saying that it took lots of patience to teach preschool children. Yes it was true. However something was still missing for me and yoga was the only thing I was familiar with at that time.

Long story short, I quit the job and started to teach. Life was unsure at that time. At certain times I had client, at certain times I did not. I borrowed money from my closest people just to continue surviving. I have had disputes with my parent regarding the choice I took, but I never want to give up. There were times when I had anxiety and frustration, felt unssupported, and I operated from the belief system of lack. It made things worse. Until one day I realized that I needed to change. I wanted to be free and the more I practice yoga and meditation, the more I know who I am and why I come here to this world . My life purpose is to help others to gain awareness about themselves which in the end would help this planet to heal too by the increasing of awareness beacuse everything is energy. We are energy and our body is energy. I will keep this topic for another time.

Anyway, I know that there are people out there who need me, so I want to keep showing myself up. It takes me huge courage and effort to be able to express myself in the best possible way I can. No matter how challenging the path is, I will keep showing up and take my power back.

How about you? What is the biggest decision you have to make in your life and how do you deal with it? Lets share your story so you can inspire others too. Sharing is caring.

I am going to talk about why I left my career from prestigious office life and decided to share my love through yoga in this post. I do not use the word "teach" because yoga is to be felt and experienced personally. The teacher's job is only to guide the students so that the students have more awareness about themselves in all aspects of life.

When I was a kid, I wanted to become a doctor. I was fascinated by doctors working in hospitals and all the equipments. Then life gave me lemon. My family could not afford to pay for my education so I had to forget about my dream.

I was then graduated from a secretarial academy in Jakarta and had worked for two companies for nearly 11 years. My work was more of administrative work, dealing with paper, email, file, etc. I also acted as the "bridge" or communicator between company and outside party. Strangely I got same role eventhough the companies were in different fields of work.

One day I realized that something was missing and that I needed to do something else. I could not live like this forever. I wanted to do something different, something that I'd love to do, but what it was I had no idea. I did not have any skills other than administration. My boyfriend at that time told me to find out about Montessori education as it was "happening" everywhere in the world, and so I did. I came to a teacher training center for my first trial and I loved it. I loved it because the curriculum used materials and we moved a lot. The group was learning about sensorial at that time. So, I decided to take this Montessori education for a year. I did not plan to become a preschool teacher though. I just loved working with the materials. Later on I found out that kinesthetic intelligence was my highest intelligence. Meaning that I am a tactile person plus I experienced my first yoga class there. I got my first yoga teacher certification in 2016 during school's long holiday.

One day I got offered from my friend who was a preschool teacher to work in her school. I decided to quit my stable office job with higher income and took this opportunity. I did not want to miss it. My family of course disagreed with my decision because the family got financial support from me monthly. However, I thought that I could not stay any longer in office life and this opportunity might not come again. I worked for two different Montessori schools for two years. I enjoyed working with kids but often times my energy got drained so fast after class and seemed like the passion had died.

I had this thought of becoming a yoga teacher and worked on my own. The initial reasons were freedom and to introduce to people that yoga was not only physical exercise. I held this thought inside for a year with many considerations. I even took online coaching with two life coaches to find out whether yoga was my true calling. After a year I gathered my courage to quit and started my own journey in yoga. It has not been an easy journey really. There are pressures from family and society, but I will keep moving forward.

Now the WHY has changed into something bigger. I want to share my gift and love through yoga because yoga can heal (the essence of healing that reminds me of what I'd wanted to be when I grew up), not only by physical means, but also emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The more we practice it, the more we become at peace and harmony with ourselves which of course will give effect to our surroundings. Can you imagine if everybody is practicing yoga and return to their true essence? How peaceful our world would become.

My first introduction with yoga was quite unexpected. I was studying as a Montessori teacher in a training center back in 2013 and there was one session where we were taught kids yoga to improve physical development as well as concentration.

I enjoyed the yoga session very much and fell in love with it that I decided to do it on my own from youtube videos. I knew that I had kinesthetic as my highest intelligence, but I was not sure what it meant at that time. I did other exercises like walking and zumba, but they were all in fast pace.

When I first started practicing yoga, I also thought that yoga was a good exercise to stretch my body and it was quite gentle and allow me time to breathe deeply. What I was not aware was yoga was not only physical exercise, but yoga also touched the mind and the emotion aspects. I became more aware about my own personality that I was impatient which led me to become angry and got irritated easily. I still have impatience at times now, but it is easier to catch that awareness compare to years ago. I would take few deep breaths to ground myself so I did not need to burst out the anger towards someone else or even towards myself. It does not mean that I am not allowed to get angry, but I can express my anger in a healthier way.

​Yoga is a work-in, not a work-out. The more you practice it, the more you know yourself better. Are you ready to dive deep and get intimate with yourself?