I had to cancel one of my classes today.  It is my Hand to Hand class for children and parents. It is such a beautiful class and I feel sad that it won't happen this month. I love the intentionality of this class. I love that parents actually play with their children in this class. We play with sticks with each other, we play a game where the parent's lap is a nest and the children fly away to only fly home, again and again.  We paint each other's bodies (the children love this one, it can be unnerving to those parents who don't want to get messy!) And we close with a ritual using stones and articulating our love for each other.  I love holding this class and I am sad that it won't happen this month.  When I first opened my business, I cannot tell you how many times I held classes for one, two, sometimes no other students but me. Being out in my studio was important in those times. My heart continued to guide me, whispering very clearly, stay out here, Jenny, it is the only way to overcome the messages of your ego. Which were lovely messages like, "This business will never fly," "Nobody cares about this work," "You are all alone out here and nobody likes you." THe messages of an EGO that had gotten way too powerful over the many years of my life. The only way to hear the heart is to spend time with it. It is the only way to turn the volume up on the heart, by spending time in relationship to it and taking the risks that following your heart requires. I had spent so much time with my monkey mind, for a while it was all I could hear. It takes my warrior nature to cut through those voices. And I am beginning to know that warrior very well. All of the nights, some very cold ones, I spent in my studio, wondering what in God's name I was doing.  It was the wisdom of my heart. Sometimes that is hard to see, when it is dark and very hard to trust.

But slowly, people began to come. The more I did my own work, cutting through, I trusted the work I was bringing to others. I had to feel into those dark corners to trust myself. What kind of a teacher would I be without doing that? So, when I have to cancel a class, all of those voices can come back. Voices of self doubt, of blame, of fear.  But my heart is louder now, and I trust that it is leading me. Not only when my class is full and overflowing, but when there is not enough to hold a class. I am paying attention now to what I am being taught. I don't know what it is right now. It could be not holding this class, or timing, or the universe telling me to rest, or guiding me in a different area of teaching, or just to try again in the fall.  But I do know that cancellations, contractions, are part of life. And I am going to go with it. And I am going to honor it.

 

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