When You Don't Get the Hint

You know, life is funny.

Have you ever noticed how the same lessons keep repeating in your life, or the same type of people/conflicts keep arising? These lessons usually start pretty quietly and intensify with time - when the subtle hints don't grab our attention. Sadly, it took one of these not-so-subtle hints to grab mine! Looking back, I now understand why it had to happen. I am also super happy that I finally got the hint, because I couldn't imagine what was in store for me next, had I not. Better yet, I can't believe what is in-store for me because I did.

It was a bone chilling morning, day after the big ice storm, when I arrived at work. It was about 7:00 am on January 24, and still rather dark, when I got out of my car, grabbed my lunchbox and purse from the backseat, and proceeded to walk into the building. As fate would have it, I wasn't to make it beyond the hood of my car. It was there, that my life was to change. I slipped on the remnants of left over ice, went down on my right knee, and broke my kneecap clean in half. My lunchbox and purse going in separate directions. I laid there a moment, or two, when the next teacher arrived, finding me sprawled out next to my car. He called the principal, as I called my husband; the next teacher pulled in. It was 7:05 am. By 7:06 am the salt driver showed up, and by 7:15 am I had quite the audience as I was getting loaded into an ambulance. Not the way I expected to start my Wednesday morning or end my teaching career for that matter.

You see, prior to that, I had Covid for a week. (The first week back from Christmas Break.) At the beginning of the school year I started a different teaching position, 8th Grade Science, after teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) for 13 years. Totally my choice, as I felt a change would refresh me and help me to find the passion I had lost in 2020: the year the whole world was given a hint.

Looking back, I see there were many whispers along the way. The length of time it took me to get my first teaching job. The behavior of my first students. The strong-willed nature of some of the students throughout the years. The profanity directed at me. The lack of respect...shall I go on? All whispers, of varying degrees, and all meant to get the attention I wasn't ready to give. And then, there was this school year. A challenge to say the least. I had students who were in 4th grade during the pandemic and have seemed to have had their behavior choices excused ever since. I was nowhere near prepared for what I experienced during the last four months of my teaching career but was always ready to make excuses for the behavior I was seeing, too. Even to my detriment.

I am both fortunate and grateful for that fateful morning fall on January 24th. This fall not only gave me the opportunity to stop, it created the circumstances necessary to reroute my life. It was on that Lazy-Boy, in my living room, that my true calling began to take shape; Healing Hearts Yoga was formed, and then Traveling Yoga with Lisa T. My mission is simple - to bring affordable yoga to those who most need it.

Where would I be if I didn't get the hint, planning for the 2024/25 school year, preparing for the next hint. Instead, I am filing for retirement next week, starting a traveling yoga business, and teaching free yoga at my campground. My heart is happy, my life stress free, and next month, begins a two-year journey to becoming a yoga therapist. I have begun to turn my passion into a livelihood and am determined to change the planet one heart at a time.

Am I scared. You Betcha! But my heart sings with joy when I think about the future, I am creating not only for myself and family, but for the planet at large. There is a force at work here, larger than you or me, and I have complete trust and faith that this force is what has led me here to my next chapter and ready to change the world.