For the past 2 days, I’ve taken some rare time off to attend a Level 2 Teacher Training with Ross Rayburn and Amy Ippoliti, held in New Jersey. The theme of the training is ‘going to the next level’. How appropriate in a room of already skilled teachers, but what does that really mean? An on-going contemplation I’ve been embracing for some time. Catapulted by a swell of amazing teachers in our tri-state area, or Tri Kula, this TT is long overdue. Following the Tantric teachings, the world is constantly growing and changing, nature is always renewing itself, and we can too. We’re never stuck, and we’re not supposed to stay the same. How cool is that?? It totally affirms that we can want more.
Conversely, it can also be quite friggin’ intimidating. All this impulse from the heart to grow can be met with fierce resistance from the mind. How do you rise up despite, and with sometimes even a hostile refusal from your own mind? Hell, I love stability! In fact, the loyalty and integrity that is so deeply part of my personality and my actions can also be quite a shadow and present challenge. The usual in an ‘ujjani’ (upside down) world, where every asset is equally a liability at times. So resisting change is a common condition among us, myself included. Even change that asks you to simply step into your greatness.
Rising up is also as natural as waking up every morning. A new day. A new chance. Start fresh. Go again. So grateful. And grateful more for the kula surrounding every day’s chance to rise up. The kula is not just a group of friends, even though it most certainly is. It’s a group of individuals that when they gather, increase the vibration of whatever you’re doing together and will hold you accountable to step up, or do things that are good for you. The kula shares this bond of wanting to rise, both individually, for each other, and for the whole.
In teacher training, trainees are asked to step into the fire of their greatest challenges… often. I’ve been there many times, and let me tell you it can be one of the most frightening and blood-pressure-elevating experiences. Standing in a room of your peers, students, teachers, and friends and put on the spot to teach can be terrifying, no matter what level you are since every level has a next level. And then it happens… you wait, your mind expands and heart softens simultaneously and your sense of hearing returns. What you couldn’t hear or see, previously blocked from fear and self doubt begins to dissolve, then vanish. We watched this numerous times in the past 2 days. To see one person deepen their understanding of themselves, brave the fire of learning to alchemize their shadows into light, refine how they speak, learn to listen to feedback and then apply it immediately, and get stronger as an example for all of us is so incredibly uplifting. It gives everyone a blessing to do the same. To witness the alchemy is astounding, and pushes each person a notch higher to their own transformation. I loved seeing the room light up.
And when you meet your next level, even if only once, it means you can do it again. In the classroom, with your partner, with your children, with a parent, with yourself. In fact if you lean in and listen a little closer, you’d hear it saying as if in a quiet chant, “I’m not leaving. Rise up. Come meet me”.
