Today’s Reverb10 Prompt states: “5 Minutes Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.”
Can you really put all your memories into five minutes? Each moment is precious, a chance to grow into our fullest potential. But when I reflect on the year, and for only five minutes, a few big memories pop out, but what really becomes clear is what I have learned from each moment.
I would remember a trip to Mexico where I found the courage to take asana anywhere, including while waiting at the border. I would remember teaching the first time at a professional conference, having to move rooms because there were too many professionals who wanted to do yoga, and then I would remember teaching yoga the day after spraining my ankle at the Mindful Lawyer Conference.
I would want to remember receiving the letter in the mail that I am going to New Zealand to study family law and all the subsequent challenges and excitement that have arisen as a result.
Personally, this time of being self-employed has given me the opportunity to travel to see friends and families, attend a conference, and create a business teaching stress management workshops to lawyers. It has given me the opportunity to reflect on who I am and what I want to do with myself. One day it came to me, in words, for the first time: I want to be useful to people. From changing the family law system to being someone willing to lend an ear to teaching stress management and yoga, if it helps someone, it is worthwhile. If not, then what is the point? I want to remember that. And it leads to what I want to remember most about 2010.
But what do I want to remember the most? Interestingly, it has to do with a bathroom at a yoga studio. One evening, I was in there after class and chatting with everyone else in there, only to discover that we were all lawyers. There were only six of us in there, but what does that mean for the profession? It means the paradigm is shifting, better yet, it means the paradigm has shifted. It all comes back to community; when we reach a critical mass, the world begins to change.
In 2009, when I started my job at the court of appeals, I was embarrassed to talk about yoga, I was embarrassed to use my tennis ball as a foot massager. 2010 was different. From lawyers filling the restroom at a yoga studio, to tree pose around the world, to a coffee shop interview, 2010 was about breaking the boundaries, about freedom from an old paradigm, and about learning to live from the heart at all times.
There can be no greater memory than the freedom to live fully in the future, from the heart, serving others.
What do you want to remember about 2010?
Namaste and Blessings!
© 2010 Rebecca Stahl, all rights reserved
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