I started yoga about one year ago [MLS: writ­ten in early 2006] and I am assess­ing what has hap­pened to me over these past 12 months.

I was career-​​oriented since I was a child. My father was a preacher and we were encour­aged to have a voca­tion, a call­ing, rather than a job or a pro­fes­sion. For years, I envi­sioned my work as part of a broader endeavor to save the world, bring jus­tice to mankind and other lofty affairs. As a jour­nal­ist and writer, I thought I was ful­filled. I also did a lot of work fly­ing by the seat of my pants since I was never trained as a jour­nal­ist. I was moti­vated, goal-​​oriented and deadline-​​fixated. File a news story, research an issue, write a report. Long hours, cre­ative ener­gies invested in expand­ing my knowl­edge and skills, all the other spheres of human life sub­or­di­nated to my calling.

I lived in Peru for 18 years (See a self-​​portrait). I saw myself a voice, an inter­me­di­ary for a needy, but silenced cul­ture and peo­ple (pater­nal­is­tic of me, but who’s per­fect?). I came back to the States in 1996 and ended up in the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), work­ing in web devel­op­ment and even­tu­ally in infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy. I was putting tech­nol­ogy to work for regional coop­er­a­tion, devel­op­ment and peace (mes­sianic of me, but who’s per­fect?). I went back to school and got a Mas­ter of Sci­ence while work­ing full-​​time and study­ing in my free time and week­ends. I fin­ished in 18 months. I was adapt­ing my modus operandi to a new career track.

Last year, I noticed a rest­less­ness and non­con­for­mity devel­op­ing within me because my career and voca­tional ori­en­ta­tion were run­ning up against real-​​life insti­tu­tions and human nature. Even though I might work in an orga­ni­za­tion with noble goals, the day-​​to-​​day affairs are just like any human endeavor. My call­ing seemed to be betrayed by the men­tal tricks I played on myself. When there’s a mishap in your call­ing, it can dent your psy­che. I could see past pat­terns of my life repeat­ing, and I did not want to fall back into them.

I came to yoga, Art of Liv­ing, breath­work and med­i­ta­tion because they offered to resolve the quandary that seemed to over­shadow my approach to life (See A Con­fes­sion). Over the past 12 months, I have shifted my focus from my career or call­ing, to trans­form­ing myself — and I’m not talk­ing about brain­wash­ing or sav­ing my soul. Sally Kemp­ton recently wrote elo­quently about the poten­tial for change in the March/​April 2005 issue of Yoga Jour­nal, “Bust a Groove!”:

“Trans­for­ma­tion is a long-​​term process. The big changes rarely hap­pen overnight. At the same time, every effort you make on the trans­for­ma­tional jour­ney is expo­nen­tial in its effects. Each time you con­sciously counter a neg­a­tive sam­skara (scar), or remem­ber the beauty of your inner self, or limit your reac­tive behav­ior to five min­utes instead of five hours, you shift not only that pat­tern, but thou­sands of related pat­terns as well. One day, you look at your­self and dis­cover that you’re liv­ing from an entirely dif­fer­ent plat­form. That’s when you real­ize how much power a human being has, and how mirac­u­lously fruit­ful a trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney can be.”

Let me just men­tion two areas of change in my life:

• I have gone through a process of phys­i­cal heal­ing, get­ting back in con­tact with my body and breath. I finally beat back a 30-​​year addic­tion to tobacco, fueled by dead­lines, caf­feine and stress. Only when I started a daily pranayama prac­tice did I stop feel­ing an urge to take a puff (and one puff would always end up being a full pack of cig­a­rettes). I have not smoked in a year.
• I now see this process expand­ing to a new phase of cre­ative heal­ing and a rede­f­i­n­i­tion of how I am going to use my pow­ers. It’s not career-​​oriented in the tra­di­tional sense, but much more open-​​ended as I dis­cov­ery where this process is tak­ing me. I am writ­ing for liberation.

At times, I feel over­whelmed by the scale of what I am under­tak­ing. This process does not have a sched­ule or bul­let list. There is only so much that I can bite off dur­ing my wak­ing hours, but that’s what makes my life so excit­ing now. I also know I may be self-​​indulgent, over-​​intellectualizing and self-​​aggrandizing in this post­ing. But writ­ing is just as much a part of my prac­tice as the asanas and breath work (See Inspire and Cre­ate). That’s also why yoga and med­i­ta­tion are such great tools because they make me come back to the mat, to the bare essen­tials, to empty myself and focus on the present.