Advice is nice... But the best decisions you'll ever make in your life are the ones that come strictly from your own heart...

Story time.

When presented with a problem, my yoga practice has enabled me to look within for the solution before I seek outside resources (yoga has a way of cultivating confidence in oneself). This wasn't always the case for me; I grew up as the youngest of three children with a disposition to look to others, to please people. This combination: the pressure from older family members unconsciously striving to live vicariously through the tike of the family (if they didn't get it right, at least they know better; at least they've got wisdom to pass down to Caitlin so she can get it right), paired with the tike's natural inclination to do as she's told - inhibited my ability to do my own decision making. In fact, the first real decision I ever made for myself, and myself only, was my decision to go to Costa Rica for my yoga teacher-training in 2009 (and boy did that raise some eyebrows! {chuckle, chuckle...}).

When I was 6, my mom put me in dance lessons and told me I was good. I believed her, and stuck with it, trying my darndest to be good; to live up to her prophecy. It was stress-full work, trying to be good just because somebody else told me I was. It made me too critical of myself; too fearful of losing "being good." Funny I was never able to look in the studio mirror and decide - for myself - whether I was good or not.

My decision to go out of state for College was based upon what I thought others wanted me to do. I watched my brother struggle after throwing away his college opportunity and I saw my sister flourish from hers... So I went for what I thought would be the path of least resistance. I moved to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona. I did this without thinking, without looking, without considering whether the environment would be to my benefit or not - I went simply because others encouraged it.

Well, Tucson turned out to be hot as hell. Love the town, but I'm sensitive to heat. That wasn't the only discomfort. I spent my time at college tearing myself apart for being overweight, insecure, and completely unsure about what the heck I was going to to do with that degree I was trying so hard for. It's difficult to work for something you're not personally invested in; for something you're uncertain about - it's like working toward something - you don't know what - with your eyes closed. The only thing that keeps you working is the reliance on someone else's vision for you; someone else telling you: "Trust me, you need this."Try and muster up some motivation to get through that! Eek. Spending four years huffing and puffing on that little mouse-wheel I call U of A led to a hefty bout of depression around the time I graduated. I had lost myself completely: I had no idea what to live for, because I didn't know how to live for myself.

My mom and sister noticed me trying to eat my suffering at every turn, they saw the lethargy, the lackluster in my eyes and took action. They did what they thought was best - packed me up and put me in my car and told me to drive to my sister's apartment in San Diego, where I resided on her lumpy green couch for 6 months while trying to find a job.

What. A job? You mean to tell me I just did all that meaningless work the last four years to do more meaningless work?

Why. in the heck. would I want to work?

Well, I was led to believe I didn't have a choice. My sister told me I had to find a job, and so the pressure was applied. Before long I landed a situation in a cubicle at the SDSU Conference Center, under my sister's suggestion and reference. Honestly the work was a little silly; I'd go cross-eyed from excel spreadsheets and office drama and try to forget my day as soon as I walked through my front door. A couple months into the job, panic set in:

Is this really what life is? - I'd think - There's got to be more to it than living every day by the clock: wake up at 6:30 am - ignore bitterness as you shake out wrinkled clothes thrown on the floor to put on - slink into work by 7:35 am, always late - boss frowns - sneak out for Starbucks by 9:00 am to suck down stale coffee. You pucker at the acidity but at least the caffeine will help you deal, start lunch-countdown at 10:00 am (maybe I can swing an 11:00 am lunchtime today), slink back into cube at 12:30, initializing countdown to 4:30 pm closing time. Then the rest of the afternoon/evening is spent by shaking off the day, then dealing with the sinking anticipation of the next workday. It's a trap, I tell ya.

That's when it hit me: Life is either an adventure, or a slow death. Darnnit, I was tired of dying, and so I started looking around for an adventure. I'm not sure if I decided on Costa Rica, or if Costa Rica decided on me. I kept hearing references to that paradise on the radio, saw it in signs, advertisements, billboards...  Something attracted me. Probably the fact that it was a jungle far away from everyone I ever knew and the flights were reasonable. Now, I wanted an inner and outer adventure, so the next thing I searched for was yoga retreats. I found the Nosara Yoga Institute from a google search, looked at pictures, read about the teacher- training curriculum, decided I wanted it more than anything I've ever wanted in my life, and bought myself a ticket to San Jose, Costa Rica, having no clue as to how I was going to come up with the money for the program, my stay, or how to tell my family and work what I was planning.

I'll tell you, once you're firmly rooted in your decision to take a path you desire for {no one but} yourself, details like that tend to work themselves out. In fact, the details don't matter. There is nothing more powerful than making a decision that is affirmed by your heart. This is what I learned from making the decision to go to Costa Rica. It was a hard journey - emotionally - I had to detach from the idea of making others happy in order to make myself happy; a habit that had to be wrenched loose. I had to detach from what I thought was "normal." It wasn't "normal" for me to quit life, per say, and blow all my savings on a yoga trip to Costa Rica. I had to detach from material possessions and comfortable living, a nice salary and health insurance... I never felt so alive.

It's been a rough road since I left Costa Rica, but also a blissful one, because I've been on my path. I have moments of uncertainty, my schedule switches up a lot, and I'm constantly putting myself in scary and vulnerable situations - yet in the grand scheme those things are mere details that come with the life I chose - the life I decided to rush head-long into without looking back - and that's what makes it so glorious, so worth living. EEe! I don't work. I teach yoga. I share compassion. I strive to be myself.  What kind of life might bloom when you decide to act from your heart? Take a breath and trust yourself.