I Step Into the Flow, and Then I Let It Go

I recently traveled to Ecuador for a 50-hour yoga teacher training at Durga’s Tiger School, which specializes in Kaula Yoga and the Tantric Path. I didn’t know much about either beforehand, but the reviews were good, and I connected with the content on their website.

(A little aside: this is exactly why your studio or retreat center needs an online presence. If you need help creating one, get in touch. I teach yoga for fun, but helping brands develop their online presence is my bread and butter.)

I arrived after a very early flight, running on fumes. The school was on a residential street outside Quito, which surprised me. From the photos, I’d imagined somewhere immersed in nature, rather than surrounded by concrete buildings and trash-lined streets.

But once I stepped through the gates, I understood. Inside was an oasis of avocado trees, lavender, colorful flowers, and tall, fragrant eucalyptus trees, overlooking the city and the surrounding mountains.

The next surprise was the cold. They’d warned us to bring layers, but coming from Nicaragua, I wasn’t quite prepared. I bundled up in my room and managed a few hours of sleep before breakfast.

I won’t go into every detail of the training here, but if you’re curious, I’m happy to share more.

The people were amazing. There were ten of us, ranging from our early twenties to our late fifties, with backgrounds spanning Ecuador, Peru, the US, Germany, Iran, Iraq, and Iceland. Our own little United Nations.

The Kaula Yoga practice lasted two and a half hours and followed the same sequence each time. For me, the challenge was the pace. Slowing down that much gave my mind plenty of opportunities to complain. But as the practice continued, those thoughts began to soften. By the end, I’d be in full-on gratitude mode.

Will I keep up a daily two-and-a-half-hour practice? Probably not. But experiencing how slowing down my body could also slow down my monkey mind—and interrupt a negative thought spiral—was something I took with me.

Which was fortunate, because the real yoga practice began when I tried to get home.

As I was about to board my flight to Costa Rica, I was called to the Avianca counter. Apparently, I needed a yellow fever vaccination certificate. I didn’t have one, and there was no time to sort it out before the flight.

I wasn’t boarding.

I spent the next five hours sitting on the airport floor, in the only spot with a strong Wi-Fi signal, trying to figure out how to get back to Nicaragua.

Eventually, I booked a flight to El Salvador, followed by a 16-hour bus journey through Honduras to the Nicaraguan border. After that, there was still a three-hour taxi ride home.

There were plenty of opportunities to crash out.

The immigration checkpoints. The 12:30 a.m. alarm to catch a 1 a.m. bus. Realizing I hadn’t packed enough snacks. Getting my period and bleeding through my pants. Booking a hotel room for a few hours of desperately needed rest, only to find it smelled overwhelmingly of air freshener and had black mold in the bathroom.

But I kept coming back to things we’d practiced during the training.

One was a song we learned for the Temezcal (sweat lodge):

I step into the flow, and then I let it go. I open my heart, my body, my soul. I surrender.

Another was something from our theater workshop. The facilitator encouraged us to work with whatever came up. If we felt confused by the instructions, we could bring that confusion into the scene. We didn’t have to perform the “right” emotion. We could begin with what was actually there.

I remembered that each time something else went wrong: the internet stopped working, a translation didn’t make sense, another call to the airline dropped.

Okay. This is what’s here. How can I play with this?

Sure I was exhausted, frustrated, uncomfortable, and very ready to be home, but I am also immensely proud of how I moved through it all. Thanks due in part to yoga.

Eventually, I arrived in one piece—haggard and probably smelling a little questionable. The moment I walked through my door, I felt relief.

Yes. This is my home.

How beautiful it is to live somewhere you love returning to.

This is why I practice yoga. For how good it feels afterward, for the like-minded souls I meet, and for moments like these—when life asks me to be flexible in ways that have nothing to do with touching my toes.

I’m learning to loosen my grip on how things are supposed to go and work with what’s in front of me.

I step into the flow, and then I let it go. I open my heart, my body, my soul. I surrender.