If no one has told you lately, let me be the first: you are awesome and perfect just the way you are. Your journey is unique and no one else can inform your path. Others we choose to bring along our journey become our teachers, even if temporary, and guide us when enduring the hardest of times. The times where we struggle, the periods when the world is just too much and everything is a battle, the days when not one thing goes right. I’ve been there too. We all have. Yet, you are the answer. The power is within you, as it is within all of us, to grab the reigns, bear down, and ride those rocky paths of life with grace and triumph.

It’s taken me a lot of work over several years to finally love myself and have true compassion for others. For way too long, I ruminated on all the things I wasn’t: not kind enough, not smart enough, not accomplished enough, not skinny enough- yet, surprise surprise, that did absolutely nothing for my motivation. All the negative thinking did was hold me in place; stewing in those comparison juices got me nowhere. The moment I started telling myself, “I want to do this, I can do this, I will do this, and I do not care what other people may think!” is when the real action began.

Where ever you are in your journey is the exact right place to be. Remember that! Once life takes you down a difficult road know that you have the ability and skill to choose how that difficulty dictates your life. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Breathe in the good, breathe out the bad.” and I am here to tell you that’s stupid. In times of strife, especially, one must take the good along with the bad as they are a package set. It is 100% okay, even necessary, to see and feel every inch of the bad, every little nook and cranny of it, in order to truly understand it. The good is you, the bad is you and both hold the answers you seek.

What is your true self? Have you met that person yet? We are asked in Yoga Teacher Training often about our svadharma (Sanskrit: “sva” means self, and “dharma” means duty) or our true calling in life. I still do not have a complete answer to this but I continue to search. What is your true calling? What is your deepest desire of life? What is your life’s purpose? It’s all very heavy but necessary. Try and fail, win and loose, one step forward and two steps back, building resilience over and over again to finally settle into a place of self knowledge and trust. The journey itself being the answer as well as the question.

Part of my calling involves you- yes, you. If I didn’t raise an upturned middle finger to the world and followed my path, you wouldn’t be reading this. If I hadn’t decided to stop allowing my failures to define me, I would have never started this blog. If I hadn’t decided to follow my passion, I would never have started Yoga Teacher Training and never would have gained enlightenment and never would have written a post like this.

I have spent most of my life serving others, definitely part of my svadharma. In teaching yoga and writing this blog, I hope to bring a message of self acceptance, love, and kindness to my students and readers. By healing others, I heal myself. You take my words to heart, my heart blooms. I am surviving a violent upbringing in addition to chronic pain, and it saddens me to know that I am not the only one out there going through the same, if not worse. I want to share all I am learning and how self study has helped me overcome my past and become the caregiver I know I truly am, and I want to hear your story too and the steps you’ve taken to do the same.

Whether you already know your life’s purpose or not (because, again, that’s waaaaaaay heavy!), the actions you take today will help get you there. Choosing not to dig deeper is an option too, of course, but if any part of your goal in life is to become your own best friend, happy, content, and stress free, then I implore you to take that mental shovel off the shelf and start digging. Today. Yes, it’s hard work but the rewards are infinite. The choice is always yours…

Expanding your self awareness, jumping into life wholeheartedly… all can help you access your svadharma. When you get a glimpse of your soul’s truth, your words will pour out of you from a place of power, your actions will line up with your values, and rather than sounding or being like someone you’re not, your soul will shine through. – Amy Ippoliti

And with that I wish you a fabulous weekend, dear friends! Get out there and break a sweat, take in some nature, enjoy the company of others, and know that you- and only you- hold the keys that unlock the doors to everything you want from life. Go get ’em.