I cannot remember the last time I actually spent all the time that I wanted on my mat.
There was always a studio to post, promote and manage, classes to teach, a day job to be present for, a sick parent to tend and travel to, a yoga teacher training to teach, my own certifications to complete... and then attempt to be present for those that I cherish and love... unfortunately sometimes in that order. I usually put myself last, gave everything I had, and then would feel abandoned when everyone seemed to leave me behind.
The realization was that I was leaving ME behind... and abandoning... me.
It was through my work with plant medicine that I came to realize how much I am loved... way beyond any Earthly loved, way beyond the traditional God in heaven loved. I realized that I don't have to fit or mold myself to anyone else's shape, flow, form, or agenda to be loved; that if people did not like or accept and include me, that it really wasn't about me. That it might be the other side of the mirror that I was reflecting to them and that we were triggering each other. The medicine also showed me how to let people, places, and situations go with love. It taught me to love the weird, extroverted, introverted, controlling, flamboyant, ram-headed marshmallow teacher/student, healer/wounded soul that I am.
This time last year, if you had told me that I would be sitting at my home in a foreign country whose raw beauty shakes me awake to tears, I would have told you that it would have been a distant dream. To actually move and flow to my own rhythm is the gift I give myself today. To honor our own true nature is the way to honor the Divine essence, that lovely spark of light that exists through and around us all.