The Beautiful Real You

When I was only 29 years old, the local magazine I and a number of other young women helped to found - Twin Cities Woman - folded after three years of love and joy. Part feminist exploration, part fashion and fun journal, part literary experimentation, Twin Cities Woman created community-wide conversation and connection. When the magazine, disappeared the staff - and, we liked to think, the readers - mourned.

For the staff itself another reality-check hit. As a reporter or an editor, your phone rings off the hook. Everybody, it seems, wants to reach you: to pitch a story idea, to vent a complaint about a story (or the lack of coverage), to ask for a job. You feel important, maybe (falsely and oddly) powerful, and sometimes popular. It is easy to think you are your job. It's easy to become confused about who you really are.

Two weeks after Twin Cities Woman folded, the phones stopped ringing. When we staff members moved our files home and began the search for new work, we commiserated about how invisible we felt. Now, only family and friends called, which also had been true prior to our three years of visibility and "fame"; by comparison, though, we felt lost and isolated.

Though we experienced feelings of dislocation, grief, sadness, and loss, I discovered a truth that set me free for the rest of my life and grounded me in an important way: I wasn't what I did for a living. Who I was and what I did - either for a living or in my social life - were as different from each other as night is from day. My work and the busyness of my life - the fleeting busyness on which our culture oddly places so much value now and which pulls us away from living in a truly balanced way - were important and interesting, of course. Just not me. 

I also developed enormous compassion for people who lose their jobs and livelihood because I knew in my mind and had felt in my body first-hand the feelings of fear, confusion, and ungroundness that arise then. Forever after, I have encouraged friends, family  members, students, employees of mine to take care of themselves, to know who they really are - not their work, not their thoughts, not their feelings but something so rich and so precious that they cannot be shaken. When we understand who we really are and we really feel it, the sun comes up on a new world and a new you, the real you. This is the lesson of the mat, of the internal journey, of healing. And it's real.

Marcia (writing), MB, Candy, and Christie

What's real for you? Share your journey with me, and we will include it if you wish. You can write me at mfappel@greenlotusyogactr.com

Especially for Beginners - FREE 

Students experiencing a restorative pose during beginners workshop

Lakeville: Saturday, April 20, 12:30 - 2:30 p.m. REGISTER

Mendota: Saturday, April 27, 12:30 - 2:30 p.m. REGISTER

At this FREE workshop you'll not only learn about the many

 classes offered at Green Lotus - you'll also practice poses from each of those classes. It's a hands-on event, led and guided by expert teachers from our staff.  They will work with you to develop a personal plan for your first a FREE week* of classes. When you attend, you receive 20% off retail products** and class packages for this one day only. This is a fun, healthy investment of two hours. Invite your friends and family to make it a party! This month, Especially for Beginners coincides with Customer Appreciation Day so register and celebrate with us!  

*Free week for students new to Green Lotus **Excludes oils, gift cards & consignment items.

BOGO 

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*Excludes Green Lotus branded sweatshirts. Buy one top and get one of equal or lesser value for free.   Cannot be combined with any other discount or offer. Expires April 13, 2013.