Integration

The day I got back I went to a stunning full moon meditation lead by a friend, and found myself singing and playing my little wooden flute, and glowing, and having deep visualizations, and feeling like all was right. I could feel the ways I'd changed and deepened. The meditation and following celebration felt like a place I could bloom.

But in the days since I've felt like all of my training has slipped away, like it didn't even happen, like I'm alone, and depressed. I leapt into yoga classes but some that used to be my favourites weren't challenging and engaging like they used to be, and the sequencing felt unsafe, and I know that going to them won't keep up my training. My community is scattered around the city and world, and there's no community gathering I can rely on. Practicing alone in my room feels... lonely; I'm so used to 40-90 people sharing energy. Planning my own sequences deflates the experience. I feel panicky about all of the physical work I've done over the last month slipping away.

I haven't yet started to look for work. I'm settling in, but I'm also really intimidated.

The last thing Ana said to me was, "remember that you can brighten up any time you want, especially when you run energy" but this city is full of energy healers -- I feel silly offering in the company of other who have trained in just that. Friends seem skeptical.

I don't feel ready to tackle teaching yoga full time (and it would take months to build up a full time schedule), I have no money at all, and no job, and I'm scrambling to find any kind of work that will pay me decently and not suck me dry spiritually and emotionally: it turns out there's nothing I want to do. Actually, half the time I do not even want to be a yoga teacher, it seems taxing. I came back bursting to throw myself into art and community, but I don't want to write or paint.

I yearn to do one of my favourite, favourite things -- sit in a cafe and write and read -- but upon my return, coffee makes me feel gross, I have no patience for reading, and nothing I read inspires me to write anything.

I've been sleeping all day. I'm concerned that I'm allergic to the house or the cat. I don't know if I should move with my house in June to a place with cheap rent, or try to find a place of my own -- if that's good for me, or if I'll just squander much-needed traveling-and-adventure money on rent if I do that.

I didn't think returning would feel like this at all. Friends who've come back have come back charged up and raring to teach. Where have I gone?