Pursing a graduate degree: my process

 a celebration, an offeringMy Master of Arts degree?

The hardest question to answer about my Master’s Degree is, “So, what are you going to do with your degree?” It's as if I’m a nomad until I can answer this with precision. However, I have been utilizing my degree all along—for the past seven years as a part-time student—one semester and one class at a time. When I began in August 2008 I was already teaching yoga and I already owned my own business as a writer and digital marketer.

What turned into seven years of one class per semester in East-West Psychology turned into the best type of graduate experience I could have ever imagined. It was, in some ways, like self-led psychotherapy as I put my entire life into each one class, especially the final papers. Each semester I evaluated where I was at in life and it was always changing. I evolved at my own pace and could not imagine seven years ago being where I am now.

What I intend to do with my degree and with my professional life is to enhance it with the knowledge, credentials and confidence I've gained, which will bridge into my writing and yoga teaching. I'll go beyond private yoga lessons and posting my written version of passions on the internet as I've become accustomed.

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Start here, self that hides: A vision into the yoga self

i write whatever you say to meMy yoga stirs up emotions in me and sometimes speaks as pasts and present all intermingle. As my body moves, and as I breathe, my stories are told. Here is a conversation with karmas that were burned one morning.

vision of yoga self

Dear self who hides,

I don’t want to leave you, or myself, behind. When your words are near (and I hear you speaking through me), I cannot help but smile inside. When I am my body, standing in front of myself, sometimes my heart shuts down. Why? I feel you more after I leave you, as if a piece of me is still with you. And so it is; you are me, left floating through the yoga studio room, melting onto the floor.

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Don't give away your personal power by complaining

Be empowered when you are injured or in pain. You have what you need inside to heal yourself if you let your body's inherent wisdom do its job. 

keep your power

Are you ever around people who complain, sometimes incessantly? Do you ask yourself if they are actually expecting you to take care of their issues? 

own your own issues, feel your heatWhen you complain, you are giving away the answers and natural healing abilities. When others are in the room to hear you—whether intentionally or not, you put it out there for the person who is potentially listening. Do you think that person should heal you?

no whining

If not, then why

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Yoga brain while driving to class

it's all in the intentionDriving to yoga is part of yoga. I got the chance to notice its power just this morning on a long distance drive to class on this Sunday morning. 

it's all in the intention

Not getting into the class because it was full is a bummer, but this event has become part of my yoga too. As I search to find the reason for missing another life-changing class and for wasting up to an hour in the car, I realize that the meaning is in what I experienced on the way there that was inspired by the energy of the class I'd been to countless times—and knew that the long drive justifies the effort. Although missed, I physically and emotionally lived it in advance.

It gave me my personal power. I still have it as I drive home. 

© 2013 Yoga Robin^®