Energy

I was looking through the archives of my music library and came across the song "Energy" by the Apples in Stereo, which I used to use as a warm-up for class.  I think about (and feel) energy all the time.  All.the.time.  It's been this way since I was a child.  I guess I'm one of those fine-tuned Pisces who has a permanent antenna.  This creates the need for me to crawl into a cave every so often, to turn down the volume of the world.  It's been a journey for me to try to understand and work with it.  I used to hate it, often wishing that I wasn't so sensitive.  Then, a mentor and friend offered me another perspective and I began to look at it as a gift, as a way to work positively in the world instead of viewing it as a weakness or burden.


I basically live a yin/yang kind of life.  In the past, when people asked me what I "do," I used to struggle with the answer, primarily because I didn't even know how to reconcile it within myself.  In the Cycle Studio, I'm the coach, the motivator, the energy raiser and it's LOUD.  On the other side of the wheel, I'm a Reiki Master and counselor.  I've spent years studying psychology, counseling, meditation techniques, world religions, and, yes, energy.  I will help guide you to the most quiet and peaceful place you've experienced.  On the surface, it's the ultimate polarity.  Underneath, it's really all just energy, utilized in different ways.  I work with energy.  Now, it's simple.

I'll spare you the quantum physics side of this discussion.  Partially because it's so popular right now, and partially because I haven't solidified my beliefs about it all.  However, it appears that I am raising a physicist, as my 14 year-old son likes to tell me. So, our future dinnertime conversations should be beyond interesting.  Example: he turned to me the other day and said, "Mom, why did humanity even happen?" (ummm?)  But, I digress.  Whether clients come through the door for a cycle class or a healing session, I feel the outside world attached to them.  It's kind of like an aura, but not really.  Imagine hundreds of Post-It-Notes stuck all over your body...the writing on them from decades of socialization, both positive and negative.  Some you've internalized, some are brand spankin' new.  My personal goal, as an instructor, is to get you to a place where the adhesive melts away, allowing them to fall off into glorious sparkling little puddles all over the floor.

Yup, this isn't much of an indoor cycling post, but I bring it all up because, like many of us, I've been struggling with my own energy balance.  The output in my life has been heavily outweighing the input, and this needs to change.  I'm an all or nothing kind of girl, and balance has been one of my greatest lessons.  As teachers, athletes, parents or whatever other role you embrace (or not), how do you find it?  I'm always working on it.  Last summer, because I was so tapped out, I took a 5-day retreat to re-connect with myself and the earth and to do a workshop.  I lived alone in a tent/cabin in the woods, ate and drank super-clean and had some profound experiences.  I was in marathon training (yes, for the famous 2012 NYC race that never happened), but I only ran once.  I love running, but my soul was just not in it that week.  Instead, I danced.  Every.Single.Day.  I was in the workshop for hours, but didn't speak (at all) in the large group until day 4.  I felt jealous of the people at lunch with laminated cards reading, "IN SILENCE" hanging on pieces of yarn around their necks.  Me?  Kinda' crazy full of energy always talking me?  Yep. Overall, it was a glorious week.  However, when I descended back through the turbulence to reality, it was the first time in all my years of teaching that I didn't know if I could get on the bike.  Seriously.  It was tough.  Our studio is on the water and I found myself driving right to the edge of the lot, sitting in my car for 10 minutes, staring at the horizon trying to find the energy to teach.  I did not want to share it.  It was all mine, like a faucet had been filling me for days and I really really did not want to flip it around.

I'm not a believer in resolutions, but I do know what needs to be done for me this year.  Do you?  Look, I'm the one in the front of the class, I'm the one leading the breathwork and meditation, but we're really all in this together...on a journey, finding some shards of bliss along the way.  Yeah, I taught that class, and I'm sharing the playlist I used that day.  The only way it was happening was if I got a little "earthy," which I did.  My soul is in this one.  Enjoy. xo Jen

P.S. I adore The Lumineers (almost as much as Grouplove).