According to Caroline Myss, we’ve entered into an age of individuality. Within this age of individuality we’ve lost the ability to acknowledge that we are all sacred BEINGS. As we continue to lack awareness that we are all sacred, we’ve become the most arrogant civilization of all time- she’s talking about the post nuclear timeframe.

Arrogance. Egoism. The burning need to be right. Our inability to surrender. Constant optimism. Constant pessimism. Divorce. Polyamory. Afraid to hear and face our truth. On and on and on.

She just might be right.

I had to sit with this for a moment. Like Myss, I’ve been observing human behavior since I can remember. I am very aware of it, including (especially) my own. All the time. It’s exhausting. My Mom always used to say to me, “Liz, just relax! Why do you have to think so deeply all the time?” Little did I know as a kid that my path is to seek. To seek truth. To seek wisdom. To seek knowledge. To seek relationship. To seek meaning. To seek purpose. To seek adventure. Today I now understand it is my sacred contract.

Since I’ve embarked on a wild journey of discovering truth, it’s not been easy…and quite frankly it’s been messy and incredibly uncomfortable. At times I feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety especially when I’m among others who oppose their own journey to truth.

As Caroline says, we enjoy being in our darkness because it’s familiar and we can control it better. Facing our truth, delving into our light, means stepping into our greatest self. And that seems to scare people the most.

How did we get to this place? This place where living a lie is more comfortable than just being honest? This place where we feel we have to prove ourselves to be liked? To be accepted? To feel worthy?
How did we get to a place where relationships are treated like a passing cloud? Like what we contribute in the evolution to each others soul is less important than what each can offer in life to our physical needs? How do couples get to a place where they can’t even communicate to each other anymore? How have we lost our way from honoring the sacred? What we can learn from each other? What we can learn from the wisdom within ourselves?

The more I understand my own truth, the more I realize that it’s the key to unlocking access to my soul. It’s scary. It’s scary because I don’t know how to live in that sacred space. God knows I’m imperfectly perfect. All of us are. The world I’d love to create for myself, is one where realism trumps optimism and pessimism. That we all recognize how sacred we are. That beyond our face, our eyes, our body is a soul within that is waiting (patiently) for us to realize our greatest potential. Our truth.

I’m headed to Japan to teach a YogaWorks Teacher Training and I’m so excited! Yet another adventure on my path to seek my truth.

Hope you are well wherever you are. Know that YOU are sacred.

Much love,
Liz Terry

“If you’re searching for that one person who will change your life, take a look in the mirror.”
~Unknown

“Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”
~Michael Masser

It’s a new year. 2017 offered a challenging perspective for many, including myself. Not only has my country endured one of the biggest reality checks we’ve had in my lifetime, I’ve had many changes that have challenged everything within me, including my values.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a very sensitive person who’s always seeking ways to understand myself better. Because I’m so sensitive, I’m affected by my environment. By my relationships. External sources as well as my internal wisdom invite me to seek ways to be a more present and more mindful person. To create better relationships. To continue to change and evolve. To connect deeper to my purpose.

Yoga has intensified this aspect of myself. By continuing my practice- between asana, yamas, niyamas, kriyas, relationships- I’m more aware of how I treat myself. Yoga has forced me to acknowledge my boundaries. One of the hardest aspects of my practice and my life. It’s forced me to take responsibility for my actions. That when I affect another person negatively, it’s awakened me to honor the responsibility in making it right. No matter the result.

We all make mistakes. Mistakes are what keep us in check, as long as we’re open enough to learning the lessons they offer, and redirecting our responses and actions accordingly. If we don’t honor our mistakes for what they are, we will continue to treat ourselves and others the same. It’s much like what we’re seeing in Hollywood and in politics. We all have our own stories of living in shame, in fear and in negativity. But we have the ability to transform and move forward in truth. We move forward in truth by keeping each other accountable for our actions. As Hollywood mentioned- and as yoga has been highlighting within me for 15 years now- time’s up. It’s time we look within and force ourselves to connect to our innermost truth and be vulnerable to making peace with our heart, our soul, and those around us. We ALWAYS have the chance to start anew and gain new perspectives. Always.

2018 is a year that I’ve dedicated to taking more responsibility and acknowledging my role in this world. How I treat others is a direct reflection of how I treat myself. As long as I continue to understand this, to make this a priority in my life, is the only way for me to wake up to the reality of my ripple in this world. Ripples do have an impact. We all have an impact.

Elizabeth Gilbert once said “I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.” The universe will continue to teach us the same lessons that we need to learn about ourselves until we choose to listen and do something about it. We hold the key to unlocking our truth. No one else. But in order for us to be able to turn that key, we must be open to what the relationships and lessons the universe puts on our path are teaching us. I pray we all dare to be open enough to want to make changes for the better. I, myself, am tired of my own bullshit. I hope you are too.

Happy New Year to all of you. I have some exciting things coming up this year, and I hope to see some of you along the way. Love to you all.

“There are days that I know, without a shadow of a doubt,
that I am among the most fortunate humans
who have ever lived.
There are times when my heart
is so filled with love
I fear it might burst.
Being human is hard.
And it hurts.
And yet, when we share the pain, feel it with each other, acknowledge how difficult and seemingly unjust circumstances have been
Dare to see and be seen
Then love is revealed.
Vast as the sky.
Able to hold whatever passes through without being marred in any way.
The fullness of life is excrutiatingly beautiful
exquisitely painful
Almost unbearable.”
~Corina Lynn Benner

Here I go. I’m about to embark on a new adventure. A quest to redefine myself and start my life anew. I often ask myself “is this what life wants from me?” If I continue to live my life in order to serve, in order to fulfill my purpose on this earth, I often wonder if I’m listening intently enough to the wisdom that guides me through. As I prepare myself to leave a place without a job to go to, without a partner to join, with nothing planned except a lot more travel, I wonder; “am I doing the right thing?”

Sometimes all I need to remember is that there is something far greater than my own understanding can grasp, of which I believe with every inch of my being, that is guiding me through my journey of life. And I trust it. At least now more than ever I do. Although I know that I play a huge part in my own destiny by the choices that I make, sometimes it’s the scariest experience to feel as though I’m not always in control of where life takes me.  In the moments I haven’t trusted the process, life has given me far greater (and sometimes unpleasant) surprises in order to bring me back on track.

So here I go. Leaving a place I’ve thrived in. Leaving behind amazing friends, the best of teachers and another bubble of comfort, in order to leap into my next adventure in life. Here’s to change. An inevitable part of life that requires a leap of faith, a lot of courage and trust that everything will turn out exactly as the universe intends it to.

Blessings to YOU
Liz Terry

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”
~Charles de Lint

“It takes a belief in MAGIC to allow our hearts to break open.” This was my experience in journeying into the Amazon jungle of Peru. Magic. Who knew?

In Yoga I’ve been taught and I’ve experienced this un-layering, this shedding of layers of my being in order to truly understand the REAL me. As I’ve shed many layers of who I thought I was, I’ve become very ‘sensitive’ to the world around me. What I wasn’t prepared for, and what I’ve never understood until now, is that the more layers I shed the more open I’ve become to the MAGIC that IS around me. Every. Single. Day.

Peru is purely magical. As soon as I arrived into the Amazon I knew that I belonged there. I’d dreamt of this moment since I was in the 6th grade and it most definitely did not let me down.

My friend and I visited a beautiful jungle hideaway called the Temple of the Way of Light where we studied plant medicine with the Shipibo Tribe and learned about how they live and thrive in the jungle. What I expected to learn compared to what I actually learned was nothing short of MAGIC.

Plants, nature, animals, wind, the sun, earth, ourselves…everything is more powerful than I ever imagined.  The jungle opened my heart to a different perspective on life and SHOWED me how incredibly connected we all are. Nature showed me that when we truly understand our connection to the whole we are most powerful together. Nature mirrors us. Nature helps us to heal our wounds from the physical body all the way through to the spiritual self. I’ve seen it, and I’ve experienced it. Pure magic.

Believing in magic requires us to drop our rigid beliefs in order to embrace the [im]possible. It requires us to let go of being rational. Of being logical. Of thinking too much. It requires us to breathe into our hearts more in order to open us up to the MAGIC that is all around us.

My niece understands this magic and I can’t help but know that I once believed in magic as much as she does. Now I understand. Now I believe again. I will never go back.

Blessings to all of you,

Liz Terry