What Yoga Taught Me about My Career as an Artist

If you follow me on social media (and I hope you do!), you may have read a post or two in which I mention becoming in 2017 a certified teacher in Integrative Yoga Therapy. Perhaps you yourself are a yoga teacher and know there is much that is learned in teacher training that reaches beyond the mat. What does yoga have to do with art? For this artist, a lot.

Before I began the one-year training, during which I traveled regularly to and from my-then home of Austin, TX, and Albuquerque, NM, I worried incessantly. First and foremost, I worried that I would be the oldest person in the room. I had been a yoga student for years and knew it was time to dig deeper. (News flash: not everyone who completes the teacher training plans to teach!) Feeling a bit late to the party, I was determined to show up, spandex and all. Turns out I wasn’t the oldest person in the room, not even close. Most important? Nobody cared but me. I’m six years older now, but I would have been with or without the certification.

It is never too late to experience new things, even reinvent yourself. I took this lesson into my artistic endeavors when I decided to downshift from a long-term career in publishing to focus full time on my art. You can experience many things in life, and you can begin them and choose to end them at any age. Think you’re too old to devote the rest of your life to your passion? Believe me, you are not.