Snavley Freebirds

Whew, what a month! I feel like I have barely been keeping my nose above the water. It seems like things are happening, one after another, that makes me feel like I am cursed with bad karma. I've not had a very good attitude about it either. I set aside a certain amount of money that I knew we needed for dental bills. None of us had been to the dentist in a very long time; Calista never has been. Martin and the kids have all had their cleaning and check-ups and it is bleak. The amount of our dentail bills are 5x what I had planned on and I haven't even gone in yet. We also had some medical bills- my scoliosis, Martin's degeneration in his neck and his hip (which he's getting a hip replacement for), and Kev has kidney stones. Our car has broke down twice this month, with a total of $2400 in repairs, and our bathroom has a very bad leak (down into the entry way) and we have to rip it out. Uuugh!

What I really wanted to blog about though was gratitude. I have just been in a dark, dark place this last month and I think it's partly because we are at the tailend of winter, the light is just starting to come back and it's just that February funk. The last couple of days the fog has started to lift. The light is getting more obvious, the days are warmer AND I just made the decision to be happy. This afternoon I took out a book that my Stepmom bought me a few years back: Attitudes of Gratitude. I just needed to be reminded that being grateful is a choice.

It's interesting that I teach yoga and try to live a yogic life, I eat healthy, I meditate but I still fight these human conditions (imagine that:) In the first page of the book she mentions that so often people teach what they most need to learn.......................BINGO! She says, "I do not set myself up as an "expert", but rather a person on a path like the rest of us, each of us becoming the fullness of who he or she is meant to be." That just says it all! Now I understand why I teach yoga. I've always felt a little "inferior" when it comes to teaching, because I don't have the same amount of knowledge as some of my own yoga teachers, but I get so much positive feedback from my classes and students follow me from studio to studio so I've never been able to give it up. I understand now that the reason they may like me so much as a teacher is that I've allowed myself to be vulnerable and they see me as a fellow human being having the same experiences and struggles as they are having. It's easy to see our yoga teachers as something above us, someone who has attained this perfect inner peace that we are trying to attain as students, but all teachers are just fellow travelers wanting to share something amazing. So I keep teaching because I'm getting as much, or more, out of my classes as my students are.

If you look to others for fulfillment,
you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
~ Lao Tzu

So...................I took a walk today so that I could reconnect with nature- I think that's inherent to human beings, whether we realize it or not. It made me feel so much better! Thursday I will head into Anchorage to do a little seed shopping to prepare for my garden this summer. I also need to repair the E string on my guitar so I can get back to practicing. I need to reconnect with those things that I am passionate about.


Today I am grateful because I have EVERYTHING I need and I have the ability to pay all my bills. I have an amazing life that I so often take for granted! I have this incredible relationship with my three children. I have so much!!!

Inside yourself or outside, you never have to change what you see, only the way you see it. ~Thaddeus Golas