Making an impact, giving people something to think about and telling your life story in under 8 minutes is quite a task. Being given the opportunity to speak at TEDX San Diego was an incredible gift and one that pushed my edge in a way I haven’t been pushed since I was in my competitive days as a Professional Snowboarder. The feeling was similar to the feeling I would get before I was about to drop into a huge jump and try a new trick, or drop in for my run in the finals of a Half Pipe comp, where everything is on the line. Excitement, adrenaline, anticipation, aliveness = FUN!
I wasn’t nervous. I was in my element. I thrive in these type of situations. The only thing that threw me off was the intensely bright lights shining in my eyes that blocked out my ability to visually connect with the audience, that was different. I am a highly sensitive person, and I could feel the audience, I also felt them sink in their seats when I dropped my bomb, a personal experience of a huge lack of integrity. My offering was about honesty and living in the truth. What does it actually mean to be living in the truth? For me living in the truth is when your words, your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings are in alignment. So what does that have to do with yoga? To me, it is Yoga.
In 2007 I had been wrapped up in the yoga world for quite sometime, about a decade. I was really great at doing yoga (meaning I had an amazing Koundinyasa I & II, could get upside down and do flashy yoga moves and all the rest), but I really didn’t even get it. I was a show pony. In 2007 I had an experience that completely changed my life and enabled me to really get what Yoga is. And in my TED talk I share that experience and how my life changed from it. Sharing an intensely revealing moment of my life was easy, the aftermath of me thinking, oh I should have added this, and looped it back into this has been the hard part. I used to experience this after a big snowboarding event, for days and days, I would re-live the experience in my head, even if I had won I would go through every moment, re-running my line on the course or through the pipe, experiencing the tricks I did and how I could have tweaked them just a little bit differently to make my run better. So this experience with TEDX was no different, the moment I walked off stage this process started and now a few days later it still has not stopped.
So I look forward to this video being released on TEDX TV and sharing what an incredibly pivotal year of my life 2007 was, finding the courage to align my inner world with my outer world. No longer just pretty poses with perfect alignment on the outside, I found alignment on the inside and the way in which I showed up in the world shifted in an instant, and the way in which the world responded was in a way that I had truly underestimated. Continually stepping into my Truth – the Truth is what I am dedicated to as a Yoga Teacher and human being.
What blows me away above all is looking at the picture of me on stage and that this actually even happened. Looking forward to sharing more with the world.
Love, light and kick ass TED talks! kb
