This morning I sat in my breakfast nook, eating toast and eggs and reading Mary Oliver.  Every poem seems more profound than the last.  I sip my tea and am reminded of how lucky and privileged I am to be able to do this on a Wednesday morning.  In one poem she gives some of my favorite advice:

“Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.”

Oh- is that all?

Recently, I’ve been trying this new thing where I don’t look at my phone seven thousand times an hour.  Real talk: my phone lets me know at the end of every week how much screen time I’ve used.  I’ve averaged something like 5 hours a day. 5 HOURS A DAY.  That is SO EMBARRASSING.  I’m sharing it here to make it real.  I use a lot of Instagram and Spotify and Facebook, and Kayak and Gmail and WHATEVER IT DOESN’T MATTER.  I’m thinking I need those 5 hours back.

I spend time on social media because I am taught to believe that to be a successful yoga teacher, I need to continuously post about my offerings, tell people what I’m doing all the time, document my cats when they’re sleeping, take a selfie when my hair looks cute or let everyone know when something ironic happens to me…or just when anything happens to me.  Why do I do this?  Why do I like it?  Confession: I love watching my friends on social media.  I love it.  I love seeing their little faces in 10 second clips.  I love watching their pets and their yoga practice and their activism and ALL OF IT.  My heart lights up when I see a notification from a loved one.  It’s true. I admit it. You caught me.  Sometimes I go overboard and spiral out into realms that are not remotely related to what I was originally looking at (hello silly putty ASMR videos, what?!)

So here is my experiment in gratitude and and listening and attentiveness.  I am going to start paying attention to things that are not in my phone.  I am going to be astonished by the world around me and the IN-PERSON experiences I’m going to have.  I am going to tell about it here on this site every so often and try to calm my anxiety around not keeping up with everyone else in the social media realm.  Will students still come to class?  I hope so.  Will my events continue to sell out?  I don’t know.  What I do know, is that I’m ready to get a little bit more free in my ability to do WHATEVER I WANT (I know, I know, within reason- rolling around in glitter on the floor with my cats is not a choice…) because life is short and I’m pretty sure I know what I’m here to do.  I can’t wait to show you.