Leading with my Heart
Recently, I was asked to speak at a women’s group event. The overall theme of the night was about wellness. The first speaker was teaching women how to feed their bodies with proper nutrients. I would speak about feeding your soul through yoga and perform a mini seated yoga class. I was excited for the opportunity to share my passion. I decided to use a magazine cover that had inspired me as my focal point for my presentation.
I am not sure what I expected, but I walked into a giant room of tables full of women ranging in age 25 to 85 which was rather intimidating. I didn't know how I would connect with each of these women, some who had never done yoga and others who associated yoga only with a religion that did not share their beliefs. As my eyes gazed around the room, they made their way to the front of the room and the speaker preceding me. She was dressed impeccably in a dress and heels and was setting up an entire slide show to support her talk about wellness. I was pretty sure I might throw up. I was wearing a T shirt that stated “SEVEN DAY WEEKEND”, yoga pants, leg warmers, and was barefoot with only a magazine. My anxiety reached new heights once she started her presentation. She knew exactly how to make direct eye contact with every table in the room and she had the perfect cadence between each of her slides. I started to use my yoga speak in my head (one of my calm myself down mantras) when I realized she was using a microphone to speak to this giant intimidating room of women. A microphone! I did not even like using a small mouth mic when I was teaching a flow class. I started to have flashbacks to my last job’s quarterly presentations and my panic of presenting to a much smaller group of business associates.
After what seems like eons, her presentation was over and it was my turn. I was nervous as I walked up with wobbly legs to speak. I felt a wave of butterflies as the sound of my voice boomed out into the microphone. How was I even qualified to be here? What did I really know about wellness? And then it happened, I opened up the floor for questions about yoga and I started to connect with those women. I found my voice, remembered why I wanted to do this presentation. I may have been dressed in yoga clothes, clutching a magazine cover in my hands, and shaky with the microphone, but I was passionate. I spoke about my own transformations from yoga, our bodies, our breath, and the powerful union. When I asked everyone to connect with their own breath and felt the energy of the room instantly change, I knew those women were nurturing their souls. There were no yoga mats and no yoga clothes. We opened our bodies while seated, we twisted, we moved our hands, and our feet, we BREATHED. These women were there breathing with me and completely present. And this is why I teach, why I loved the idea of presenting to this large group because for 20 minutes, those women forgot they were in a cafeteria, the room was in complete stillness, and they were able to let go.