It was a balmy summer night, and I had just finished teaching a Full Moon yoga class near the shores of Lake Erie. It was dark and I was enjoying the afterglow from the class, the students slowly rising from their yoga mats with peaceful looks on their faces, and all of us in awe of the radiance of the full moon and the healing light it was providing.
A large group had gathered that night and I was delighted to see students I had not seen in a while. I noticed a woman who had started coming to my summer beach yoga classes a few years ago who told me one day after class that she had been trying to get pregnant and was coming to yoga for not only the physical aspect, but also to help with grounding and her peace of mind. I taught her breath exercises that summer and was so happy to find out that later in the year she had become pregnant. I remember coming home that day and telling my husband what happened, and he teasingly said, “Oh great, now you think you can help women get pregnant.” I laughed and knew it was not me, but the power of yoga to soothe the nervous system, help release stress, and bring about a sense of calm, which helped her conceive.
She walked over to greet me, and I had so many questions for her. I wanted to know how she was, and how old her kid was, and how she liked being a mother. She proceeded to tell me that she loved being a mother and had two children now! From someone who had struggled to conceive, I knew this was a miracle, and I was thrilled for her.
“Maria, I have something for you,” she said as she took a silver beaded necklace that had a silver key on it and handed it to me. “It has the word CREATE engraved on it. One of my friends gave it to me when I thought I could not have children and encouraged me to wear it and to let it remind me that I had the power to CREATE a life that I loved, with or without children. I wore it all the time and I created what I wanted, a life with two beautiful children, and a family of four with my husband. Way more than even I thought was possible, so this key worked for me, and now it is time for me to pass it along to someone else.”
I looked down at the necklace she had placed in my hand. “I heard that your husband has recently passed away, so now you will need to create a life without him, and I wanted you to have this to help you create a new life that you love.”
I cannot tell you how touched I was by this enormous gesture, but I can tell you that I started to cry, and I leaned over and gave her a huge hug. It was a full moon blessing and gift all wrapped in one. I have had the key for almost three years now. There have been times I forgot about it, but I put it on a little altar on my desk next to my crystals, so I always see it, and it came with me when I traveled around the world last year.
So, what have I created in these years? I can tell you that…
I have created a life where I remember the good times my husband Vince and I experienced together and let go of the trauma of his illness and death.
After the burnout of being a caregiver and post-menopausal grieving widow, I have created a healthy lifestyle and strong sadhana (daily yoga practice) and feel better than ever.
I have created the ability to live alone and not be lonely or sad (well, at least 95% of the time, I do have moments).
I have created the ability to eat alone at a restaurant or go to an event alone and enjoy myself.
I have created quiet in my mind and peace in my heart as a result of letting go of attachments and struggles.
I have taken my freedom and created a life full of travel and adventures, and the ability to do this travel alone and feel safe and happy.
I have created and provided loving support for my family and friends who have recently lost a loved one or are experiencing health issues.
I am birthing two new babies – post menopause! What the what?!
Well, my babies are two new creative projects about which I am excited.
First, I have decided to dust off vintage (that sounds better than old) inspirational blog posts from The Daily Downward Dog and begin to share them with you again perhaps with fresh takes. In addition to those, I will be authoring new stories about my journey and will share them here on the Daily Downward Dog and in a new space I am in the process of creating on Substack. (If you use Substack and can offer guidance to me, I will welcome the help). My goal is to create a place where I can spread JOY, light, and positivity to others. I want to be a Courier (my family name is Currier) of joyful positivity, inspiration, and love in service to women, for the benefit of all beings.
Second, I am birthing a movement that I am hopeful will help lift and support women that I am calling “Just 3,” so stay tuned and I will share more about that in an upcoming post.
A year after my husband passed away and before I received the gift of the Create key, I had an Akashic record reading and learned that I was standing on the shore of a beach and that in front of me was an endless sea of possibility. That I should think about what a life beyond my wildest dreams would look like and to create that. Are you sensing a theme here?
Seriously, the best coffee ever!
Fast forward to 2023 when I decided to celebrate my sixtieth birthday by traveling around the world. Sometime during the ninth month of travel, I found myself on the idyllic Greek island of Ikaria. On a beautiful sunny morning, I was sitting at an outside café drinking a freddo cappuccino while admiring the sun sparkling off the colorful Aegean Sea and the surrounding Greek islands out in the distance, enjoying being immersed in a different culture, hearing people having conversations in foreign languages around me, and thinking about which beach on the island I would visit that day, and suddenly it hit me, the realization that I was living a life beyond my wildest dreams. An overwhelming sense of joy and a smile arose and I thought, I did it!
Shooting out Intentions into the Universe in Archer’s Pose at the Temple of Artemis, Nas, Ikaria
Now that I have created a new life I love, it is time for me to pass along my key to another worthy recipient. In all honesty, I should have passed it along to someone sooner than now, but I am ready and am giving deep thought about who to pass it on to.
So, you may be thinking, I need my very own create key. I will tell you that you do not need an actual key, all you need is the desire to change your story, to set positive intentions, put in the work of manifesting them, and believe you can be happy and live a life you love.
I am sharing this post on the fourteenth anniversary of the launch of The Daily Downward Dog, my business and personal blog. It has been five years and six months since I published my last blog post on January 30, 2019. I was coming off one of the most abundant years of my yoga career, leading three international and one local yoga retreat, a yoga teacher training program, regular studio yoga classes and the summer beach yoga program, monthly workshops, and two more international yoga retreats scheduled for early 2019. It was just two weeks after that last post that a doctor delivered my husband’s terminal ALS diagnosis, and my career went on hold. I feel blessed to have been his caregiver that year before he passed. The next year was the global pandemic, and I was back in isolation again, but this time with a purpose to restructure and rebuild my life. I am excited to have the time now to pick up where I left off and to share my experiences, in hopes that it will inspire you to create a life beyond your wildest dreams too.
Thank you for reading, and please take a moment to leave a comment to say hello or to share your thoughts about what you would like to create.
The post Create first appeared on The Daily Downward Dog.
