it’s a calling, and it speaks to you every day, to walk your way

What’s calling you? What’s missing?

There’s these stereotypes about yoga teachers. We’re flighty, naïve, innocent, good at meditating but bad at balancing our checkbooks, great as floaters, bad as planners. And don’t ask us to meet a deadline—we don’t even know what that is.

But…what if we do? And what if we can? Ask your yoga students to process this—like I have over the past few days—and you’ll get a variety of reactions, mostly confusion and mild distress. We like to put people in manageable boxes. This, not that. That, not this. It makes life easier to handle. It makes being who you are more challenging.

And how about entrepreneurs and business people? They’re A-types, hard-edged, know-it-alls, bad at connecting to their softer, essential self, but great at making a buck. Ask them about deadlines and they’ll tell you they run their lives.

But…what if they don’t? And what if they’re not?

What if we can all be both?

What if our capacity to tune into our softer, essential self, our deep and guiding intuition—not to mention the physical health-inducing benefits of being a meditator and a yoga-lover—actually means we make rockin’ business people? And what if our entrepreneurial leanings mean that we can take our passion for being of service to greater levels out in the world? Not convinced? Just ask tuned-in and turned-on raging successful entrepreneurs Jonathan Fields, Danielle LaPorte—or even hip hop fashion man Russell Simmons .

So as of December 2010, I decided to follow a dream.

Screw the stereotypes. Forget trying to fit myself into a box. I’m a yoga teacher, a spiritual gal to the core, a business woman and an entrepreneur. I’m committed to being of service in this world, to helping make it a healthier, happier place, and I’m gonna do it using every skill I have. If this makes people uncomfortable, I’m sorry. I feel bad, I do. But I feel worse if I limit myself.

So I’m launching Libre Retreats: immersions in creativity, adventure, and mind body soul. Because health and happiness are not by-products of chance. They’re the radiant results of a life well-loved, a life fueled by creativity and adventure that nourishes our body, mind and soul.

The best part is that once we begin to live this life, the life that calls us, we begin to give back. The proof is in the latest research:

“Happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens.”

– Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

So it’s about you. And it’s about the world.

The next Vancouver retreat is May 20-23. Spark: Re-Ignite Your Creative Self , where you’ll dive into a revitalizing, intensive weekend dedicated to re-igniting your creative self. Workshops include: Creative Writing, Performance Art, Artful Expression + 6 Yoga Flow classes at Semperviva Yoga Sea Studio to get you in the groove.

I’d love to share this dream with you. But that’s not the whole point.

The whole point is this:

Love and the living are one

Sit back, relax, you got a job to do

The only who understands it

Is the one who’s living right inside of you

It’s a calling

And it speaks to you every day

To walk your way

– Ma Chant by Wah, on album Love Holding Love