This started off as an IG caption, but I started writing, and here we are.
P.S.: For all of you who respond to these and share your thoughts with me (whether via email, likes, comments, DMs, whatever) I need you to know how much it means to me. Writing has a special place in my heart and to know you’re enjoying bits and pieces of my path and heart is meaningful as fuck. Thank you!
-marr
I love it here. I woke up before my alarm, and I feel like my body knew today was different. When 2024 came in, it felt like a new wave of energy was around. I’m sure there’s a planetary reason, but for me, it felt like I was entering a new era. I turned 30 this year, I was noticing my work was plateauing, and I was really ready for whatever was “next.” I meditated on it and saw my path so clearly. I just didn’t realize I saw the end goal, not the daily that’ll get me there (which I’m now realizing that that’s kinda my job lol).
I kept traveling inward, trying to find the right path to get to the more direct path that’ll get me to the ‘end goal’ I saw in my meditation. Then a close friend shared something with me that I’ve heard myself say to everyone else a million damn times:
“Maybe this is your time to take baby steps. Maybe you don’t run to the end; maybe you do a bit of it and see if you even like it.”
It hit me then — I realized that baby steps aren’t small. We only think so when we see ourselves as being so ‘big.’ But baby steps, oh baby, baby steps are BOLD. They are DARING. They are full of FAITH in the fact that you can handle the step after AND that if you don’t, you’ll get a diff view and perspective on the floor and will be able to get back up and go again. Baby steps are a PORTAL. I had to get back to baby steps. I don’t even know when I stopped engaging with them as intentionally as I have been lately, but it’s been beautiful to welcome it back in.
For me, the vision was of me teaching yoga, meditation, and movement worldwide and in my own studio, writing columns and books, teaching + traveling to teach, recording meditations for organizations and companies I love and use, being aligned with. And yes, I have the delulu confidence to assume I can do and have all of that with no baby steps. Now the confidence without the knowledge had me chasing this vision. Now what if I married the confidence with the knowledge that the baby steps will bring me and continue manifesting the me that keeps building her toolbox, her knowledge base, and is learning how to enjoy the journey instead of running to the end goal. I mean, what did I think I was going to do at the end goal without actually traveling to get there? I realized that yearning for the end goal is not yearning for a fulfilling journey; it's wanting whatever we think is bringing us bliss in our time of distress.
Now I’m yearning for the baby steps. I’m yearning for the slow moments. I’m loving the time I’m taking to exist, to play, to learn, to try, to fuck up, to fall in love, to see myself living in the day-to-day of the life I have been manifesting. The life we want isn’t in the goal achievement. It’s in the maintenance of the goal, the mundane, the ways we keep enjoying the journey that makes the goal a goal in the first place. I stopped wishing for the perfect vacant studio to appear on my lap (without even a 200hr YTT lol) and I started going to yoga. A darling friend took me to a class she swears by, and I was in sweaty love again with a practice I had honestly forgotten to enjoy. I needed to be in it; I needed to know if I even liked it.
I loved it. So I made a commitment to my friend that I’d sign up for 2x/mo so we can link and enjoy a hang and medicinal hot yoga sessions. In the meantime, I shifted focus to calling in a YTT that feels aligned while I enjoyed taking classes.
My faith in my baby steps was confirmed when my favorite yoga studio in Long Beach shared that they were looking for help in the studio. I trained right after my interview, and I had my first shift today. I can’t tell you the bliss I felt meditating at the beach beforehand, having my beautiful husband drop me off at work, being amongst community, tending to the studio, feeling myself walk the halls of a place I admire and enjoy being at and being able to call this a work day. I came home and wrote the sweetest program for a client and was able to create a guide I’ll be sharing soon on how to create new habits that feel aligned and easy to get into. All of what was “work” today ended up being fueling instead of feeling like a drainage. I know it stemmed from the shift in my outlook.
Work stops feeling trash when you stop feeling like it’s not the work you’re meant to be doing or when you feel like what you’re doing isn’t worth much. I’m meant to be doing what I’m doing, I’m meant to be learning from my research, I’m meant to be connecting with my clients, I’m meant to be exploring new things and sharing my learnings. This is what builds the goal I had seen. If I don’t stay here, if I keep running towards that thing, I’ll miss every bit of bliss that’s going to make that goal that much sweeter. It’ll also keep restoring faith that what’s mine is making its way to me. Even knowing that’s real has me looking at what’s already on my lap with the same depth. This is mine, it was meant for me, let me receive it.
What’s for you won’t pass you. When I can’t remember this, the universe finds ways to remind me. Whether it’s from my family, close friends, or the sweet instances where you get that thing you were really dreaming for and it shows up and you get to smile knowing that the good days are right here, right now.
you’ll be hearing more from me soon, I promise!
- marr