People tell me daily about how I have developed a niche for myself in both the yoga and psychotherapy fields. I always nod, say thank you and divert the conversation elsewhere.

Because
In my experience, there are two tracks that direct my train.

The first track is this:
You can't help everybody. 
So help somebody.
To prevent helping nobody.

The second track is this:
Go where you are invited and welcomed. 
Do not trespass.

I aim to stay the course with these two primary tracts intact. It is easy to get derailed you know. Helper mentality dressed up as evangelical colonialized savior mentality thinking. Rogue bushwacking forsaking rules and regulations. Never taking any risks. Never slowing down.

For me, a niche market is not an elite crew of people. It is not a VIP client or special high paying customer. It is not a limited special population with any kind of special needs. It is not a box to be screwed into. It is not a place to save or people to heal. It is not a place or space where I get to build whatever I want and then charge in a way that is unjust to the original people or place.

A niche market--your niche market--is simply and metaphorically that very special island of service that calls to you, that invites you, and for which you have skills to offer.

You are not there to colonize or fix.

Its the land that for a long time has been calling you home. And so you built a ship, honed some sailing skills and made your way to that special shore, that special land, those special people that is special because it and they know your name--your true name.

They will not hail you preacher, leader or crown you guru. Together you will be able to build a community where perhaps in the past you were simply a floater and distant traveler. An outsider.

Your niche market is that spot of earth in the vast sea of your industry that calls to you. Its land is your body and your breath. Its where you can unpack your burden and your skills and make a home.

A niche is not something you identify. It is something you listen to and for, carried on the wind. You can pinpoint a niche market but you will end being a colonizer. Allow yourself to be in awe of discovery and trust the home--the island where you belong that emerges out of the distance--whose people know your name. And are waiting for you to join in community with them.

It is not something to be had or gotten.

That's the niche. 
Your place.
Amongst the things 
And the People.

There were really very few things I enjoyed about being pregnant with my daughter. I was sick every day, all day for six months. I spent the first three and a half months laying on friends couches and puking in their trashcans while we looked for a place to live. I hated the giant boobs (little did I know they would get even bigger when I started nursing). I didn't like the constantly changing body. I was a magnet for unsolicited, arrogant and annoying commentary and advice. I literally couldn't walk or go anywhere without a chorus of voices. I had fleeting moments of excitement and happiness during my pregnancy with Olive, but not the kind that so many women in my life told me I was surely having or should be having.

What I experienced the most in those months was free-fall. For the first time in my life, I had no choice but to stop fighting and just listen. Listen to what I needed in a way that I had never been able to do before. I became completely unapologetic about my needs. I became unabashedly unafraid to disappoint and be myself. Because my Self no longer belonged to me. In fact, I became secondary. I became a vessel. I became the earth for someone else. And so I learned what service felt like in a way I couldn't have ever had before. I did not feel excited or happy nor did I enjoy this process.

But I accepted it. And in the acceptance, I let go. In the letting go, I received the experience fully. In receiving I drank it in. In drinking it in I made good choices. I let myself be consumed by it. I allowed transformation to happen.

I really disliked being pregnant. There I said it. Like I basically hated it. So much so I actually do not look forward to being pregnant again one day.

But here is the thing. I loved giving birth. I loved giving birth so much that I still have dreams about giving birth. I dream about giving birth to other peoples babies. I'll do the pregnancy thing again just to give birth to another human again. The most wonderful experience of my life was birthing my daughter. And guess what? My birth did not go to plan. I transferred to the hospital at forty two weeks and a few days after spending months planning a home birth. And I managed to have an incredibly empowering birth experience despite this change. I think it was in part the great education I had received from my midwife and I felt totally capable of speaking up for myself. I think I also felt total relief that I would no longer be pregnant.

The idea that perfect mothering comes from perfect pregnancies is a horribly unhelpful myth. The idea that our children are damaged if we hate being pregnant with them is also a myth. Because they are also marinating in all the other feelings and self-talk too. Like surrender and acceptance and fortitude and grace. Our babies do not need to marinate in the perfect soup of hormones. They need to marinate in Love. And by Love, I mean that "deep okayness". By Love I mean, that sense of wellness, not perfection. That sense of peace. I felt a lot of that during my pregnancy even though I struggled a lot.

My toddler has a deep capacity for emotional regulation and is perfectly healthy and fine. She didn't get a perfect womb. She didn't have the perfect birth plan. She wasn't born on her due date. She doesn't have a perfect mommy.

One day she'll need to reconcile with her body. She'll need to learn to love it even though it feels yucky sometimes. She'll need to accept all her parts. She'll need to love herself. She'll have to reconcile my insane love for her and the fact I didn't love my pregnancy with her. I hope I've taught her about love, juxtaposition, reconciliation and wholeness. My kid needs a whole mommy. Not a perfect one. My pregnancy wasn't enjoyable, but it taught me self-love. Olive taught me self-love. She taught me about being whole.

Birth is the ultimate reckoning. 
Of Love.

I'll never forget the moment I realized Olive was going to come out of my body at any moment. I had reached down and felt her head.

Something inside said, "stop pushing."

So I did.

Something you may not know about me is that at times I suffer from debilitating anxiety. I choose to use this word "suffer" because when these moments hit, I am indeed suffering. I am totally suffocated by my own neuroses. Lost in the land of can't breath and can't think. 

I lose myself. 

Last week I called my husband to come home from work because I was on the verge of a panic attack and needed help with our daughter. When he arrived I simply began crying. Olive, our two-year-old is incredibly perceptive and empathic. She began to cry too. And my husband as our rock, calmed us down and then proceeded to make us run through the sprinkler and lay in the hammock. Which reset everyone. (More on why this resourcing works further down the post)

I suffer from an anxiety that has two distinct streams. The first is this: 

I have always been incredibly sensitive and moody. I can pick up on others thoughts and emotions very easily. I have had to create impeccable boundaries and have been called uptight, rigid, unable to relax and bossy more time than I can count. But I am also incredibly sensitive and accommodating. And when I get out of center I do not always speak for my needs. I give my power away and then I am lost at sea, drowning in so many feelings at once that I choke back the anxiety until I can't anymore. Sometimes I do not realize I have been suppressing these feelings until my body breaks down or cries out. Honestly, I have observed that this has been made worse by social media and the easy way we compare via this medium. It is too much input for my system to hold. 

The second stream is this: 
I come from a lineage of survivors. Transgenerational trauma if you will. This lineage has granted me a very vigilant nervous system and a severe lack in the ability to feel safe. My cellular imprint includes captivity, hiding, terror, migration and a real fear of death due to mere existence. It has worsened since our political climate has deteriorated. And since having a child and becoming more indebted to my lineage, to this world and to my body. As the love has increased, so have the stakes. And some days, the existential fall is too much. 

These streams manifest in the kind of anxiety that includes visceral terror even in the presence of privilege, health, and safety. I panic. Sweating. Crying. Sure I might be dying. Or something is wrong. 

For me, my anxiety and panic manifest in a hyper-vigilant neurosis of my body and what is happening inside my body. Can I breathe? Is this ok? What's this bump? Should this be here? What if it's not ok? Whats that sensation? Is that ok? It's a neurotic checking. Checking. Checking. Prodding. Poking. Checking. Am I alive? Am I real? Am I ok? 

I share this with you because there is still a way we believe that yoga magically heals. That it removes suffering and pain. That it makes us immortal and incapable of becoming sick. We still think it can solve problem therapy can't. 

This is not true. Not true at all. It is not that simple.

For some people going into the body and its sensations is incredibly resourcing. It supports the nervous system to relax and orient. Using forms and shapes gives a safe container to feel. After years of being out and frayed, it is time to recognize we have a home. A body. A sensation. Feelings. Some people need to go I N to wake up.

For other people, they are already drowning in themselves. In every sensation and every feeling. So when we ask them to feel, they get flooded by all that's in there. It is not a relief. It is a suffocation. For those of us, who tend towards hiding inside our own sensate vigilance, we need to peer
O U T and towards nature. We need to lay on the ground, feel the cool water on our skin. Feel the contact of another human. 

I share this with you because I am hearing that as somatics becomes more of a trend in our yoga culture we are leaning into sensation tracking more than before. This is wonderful. It is taking the practice of yoga into a deeply human and present time. Making yoga about embodiment and life. Not one of dissociating and going up and out to someplace more ideal. 

But this process is incredibly nuanced and I want to help us refine our awareness of how the nervous system works and what we are doing when we talk about resourcing and developing the sensate world. (more on that another time) 

I share this with you too because we also need to continue to dismantle our own shame and hiding around our wounds and lineages so that we can be freer to teach, lead and learn from our souls. Not a single teacher of this practice is free from a wound. And most people I know, myself included, put on a good front. It's not cool to talk about anxiety or depression or addictions or abortions or flailing marriages or being rageful at your kids. It's not cool to admit that the yoga hasn't cured us of our humanness. It's not cool to say we need something else besides our daily dose of #yogaeverydamday or being #heavilymeditated.

We need these practices to refine our consciousness so that we can see our fears, anger, grief, and joy and all our experiences as normative--until they aren't. These practices can help anchor us in a truth and give us an "Island of sanity" that nurtures our emotional and sensate experiences. And these practices can help us create meaning where we otherwise feel lost. 

Last week I felt really lost. This week I feel found and tender and real. I feel contacted and located inside my truth. Which means I had to see some hard dynamics in my family and have a tough conversation and admit some hurt. The yoga helps. The dance helps. The trees help. Music helps. Speaking the truth to friends helps. 

As one of my teachers says....

Lather. 
Rinse.
Repeat.