Family Everywhere

It's not very often that you know while something is happening that it is one of the most important experiences of your life. But when it happens, you want to milk every second.
I've been at my yoga teacher training now for 10 days. I can not believe it has only been 10 days. It feels like it's been at least a month. I feel like a completely different person than I was 10 days ago when I first arrived in this unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar people. This place is my home now, and these people my family.
We start off every morning with a half hour of meditation from 7-7:30, followed by two and a half hours of yoga practice. For the first few days, I would wake up and think, "I just have to make it to 10:00. After that, I just have to sit and listen to lecture. I just have to make it through meditation and practice."
But slowly, without me even noticing, practice and meditation became my favourite part of the day. I look forward to finding out what the theme of the practice will be every day. Although it can be really difficult sometimes when my muscles are screaming at me to get out of a pose and my determination is screaming at me to stay in it, I absolutely love it. I love the mind over matter battle.
I also can not believe how much I have learned in 10 short days. Three days ago, we had to teach for the first time. Ten minutes of some variation of sun salutations. I didn't even plan anything because I thought ten minutes was trivial. Of course I could teach ten minutes. I got through five and I drew a blank. Suddenly I couldn't for the life of me think of a yoga pose. Of all the hundreds of classes and thousands of times I have been cued into a pose in my life, I couldn't think of one. Today, I taught a half hour. And it was easy! How did that happen in three days!?
I remember the judgements I had when I first got here. Someone would say something and I would immediately think "Well I don't like that person. I'll be avoiding them." And for the first few days, I did. Every time a person I decided I didn't like would speak, I would get annoyed. And somehow, in the last few days, that has changed too. All of a sudden I realized that getting annoyed with someone for the person they were was hurting them and me. You can feel it when someone doesn't like you. You can feel the negative energy. And for what purpose? So I decided to seek out these people and talk to them. And much to my surprise, it turns out I do like them! Every single person here is kind hearted and has something to offer me.
I know that when I leave here and return to regular life, it's going to be much harder to live like this. I know that it won't take long for my old habits to creep back. But at least I have the awareness now that I can do it. I can get past these immediate judgements I make and be much happier on the other side. Although it may take time and a lot of effort to break these habits I've had for my whole life, awareness that I can is the first step.
I'm one third of the way through my training and I've learned so much. I've learned so much about being a yoga teacher, but more than that, I've learned so much about myself. I truly can not wait to see what the next two weeks will teach me. I love this thing we call life.