Take Time To Listen

My friend Terri asked today how I came to be at our workplace.....she knew there had not been yoga at our rehab center until I started the classes there almost seven years ago.  At first I was very hesitant to tell her the true story, but Terri and I are friends and we share such a love for those that we serve.  Actually, I had second thoughts about writing this particular story tonight, but I think we all struggle at times with really listening to our inner selves.

Seven years ago, my mother was dying.....hospice nurses told us it was only a matter of weeks.

I was devastated, though I was exhausted from helping to care for her, she was my mom.....and I could not imagine life without her.  I was  teaching yoga at a local gym, actually across the street from my mom's house, I had a class at a couple of community centers, and at a drug rehab facility in a town a few miles away.  It's not as though I needed or had the time to teach more classes.

But, one morning, after Rick had gone to work, and I had come home to rest and shower before going back to care for my mom ( bear with me, this is when you have to listen to your heart)  I heard a voice as clear as could be, tell me to call the facility where I now work.  I had never been there, knew no one there, but did know it was only a few miles from where we live.  I called Rick at work, told him what had happened, and he told me I should make the call.  

I made the call, the receptionist put me through to the man who is my supervisor....I took a breath and told him that I was a yoga teacher, would he be interested in classes at the facility.  He asked me to come for an interview.  I drove up the next day, met he and the director and they both told me they would give the classes a try.  One class per week, on Saturday afternoons.  I explained about my mom, the man who would become my supervisor told me to go home and care for her until she passed.....then take a few weeks to grieve, then call him.  My mom passed two weeks later on November 3,  the first Saturday in December I taught the first yoga class there....seven years this December, I am still there.

Terri looked at me as I told her my story, she smiled and said "this is where you were supposed to be, you were meant to be here."  She is right, there have been times, when I questioned my being there, but in my heart, I knew, I believed in what I was doing, I knew that I could teach yoga in a way that would help those struggling with addictions.

I think I our lives are so hectic and so fast paced, we don't always listen or don't even hear that still voice that guides us.......but I know in my heart, that it is there.......and when you listen, it never steers you wrong.  Rick and I wrote a song, one of the lines......."your heart don't give bad advice."
Take time to listen.