We all have jobs and/or hobbies that we loved before we became mothers. But parenting often interrupts those pre-kid passions and we have to set them aside for a time. But children grow, and if we are lucky, we can get back to the things that make us light up inside.
Every once in a while I remember the archives feature on Instagram and click through to see what is usually some over-filtered “photograph” of a lake or a tree or something undecipherable from 6-10 years ago.
Then sometimes it will be a more recent picture {and yes, I would say 5 years is recent because I realized at some point in my early to mid 30s that time ceased to have any meaning and it could have been 5 years ago or yesterday}. This one was from 2018. I was in a cute little yoga pose at the studio I once taught at. I must have been about 12 weeks pregnant or so with my oldest, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at me.
I remember those times in a blur: pre-kids, pre-2020. So many befores and afters. But I remember thinking about how easy it would be to go back to teaching yoga after having my baby. How I would start slowly at first, maybe find a nanny eventually and by the end of our first year together surely I would be right back where I had left off.
Whew! If that isn’t further from how it actually went down. How could I have known my baby would refuse to take a bottle? That every time I left him for more than an hour all I could think about was how he would be screaming for me when I got home, his dad desperately trying to feed him an ounce or two.
How could I have known a pandemic would come and completely alter the lives of every person on planet earth, shutting down the studio I was teaching at and changing the entire trajectory of my life?
It wasn’t just one thing, of course. It was all of the things that added up: me leaving the studio and teaching online. Then, getting pregnant with my second child and taking a hiatus from teaching that would last over three years. Does it still even count to say I’ve been teaching yoga for over a decade if I haven’t taught a single class in 2+ years?
So back to this picture that I posted. First trimester me in a cute little yoga pose with not a care in the world or any idea what lies ahead of me. As I posted this picture in my IG story, archived from September 2018, I captioned it “Should I start teaching yoga again?” with the existential thinking face emoji.
The truth is, it hadn’t just come out of nowhere. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. My oldest is in his final year of preschool, and my youngest started MDO this year. The light at the end of the home-every-day-with-two-little-kids tunnel is clearly in view. The question is, now what?
Well, so far I’ve started running again, volunteering and meal prepping. But do you know one thing I haven’t done? Stepped foot inside a yoga studio. It’s shocking to me even as I write the words. Five years ago, you couldn’t mention me without yoga in the same sentence. It was all I did. All I thought about.
And now? Now I don’t know if I even want to go back to teaching. What if I step back in the studio and the magic is gone? What if it doesn’t do for me what it once did? What if I can’t teach anymore? What if I’m bad at it? Honestly, this is the thing that I’m most afraid of.
I loved practicing yoga, but even more than practicing, I loved teaching. And I was good at it. For a long time I would have said it was the only thing I had ever been good at. But what if I’m not good at it anymore? What then?
So, I’ve been too scared to step into a yoga studio and to face who I was 5 years ago and two kids ago. And then on a whim, I post this cheeky little IG story of me doing yoga and wondering publicly if I should go back and y’all… the response.
“YES!” Please go back!” You have to!” Yes! You are such a great teacher!” “You are the best teacher I’ve ever had!”
When I tell you that the universe, God, whatever you want to call it will send you signs… it couldn’t have been more clear. I couldn’t have been more taken aback. The majority of these people I haven’t seen in a yoga class in years. Two or three years, maybe 5 or more! To have so many people feel so strongly. For them to remember the way I touched their lives all those years ago.
I don’t share all of this to toot my own horn. I share this because you too may not even realize how you have touched someone’s life. The way that you have done something important and meaningful, and not even realized its full magnitude.
And if you’ve been out of the workforce for a while because you’ve been taking care of your family and you’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I see you.
If you’re starting to feel that pull to do something meaningful with all of this time that you now find yourself with, I encourage you to think about what lights you up. What makes work meaningful to you?
Just like in parenthood, we don’t always get to experience for ourselves the effects of all of our hard work. Knowing that it’s important to someone, or so many, makes all the difference.
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