Two weekends ago, my friend and Reiki Master Sylvia and I co-taught a day-long workshop about using crystals in everyday living. This was quite an exciting day for me because it was my very first paid job in the holistic field! HOORAY! We had a wonderful, small class for a first time offering and the participants were warm, supportive and very receptive. And as is often the case, there were more subtle lessons to take away from the experience as well.
As you can imagine, I was so beside myself the night before, I slept like a five-year-old waiting for Santa. So luckily, I had plenty of adrenaline to keep me going when I got up the next morning. Sylvia and I arrived early to set up the space. We of course had many examples of stones and crystals for the class to touch and pass around and made sure everything looked as inviting as possible with the help of some colorful cloth, white holiday lights, and mirrors for the crystals to sit on. We had two tables full of examples from our collection as well as a couple others for our various workshop needs.
The day seemed to fly by and I had a marvelous time. We received some great feedback and were very thankful to those who were willing to share their opinions about their experience. And I send out a big THANK YOU!!! to everyone who attended, to others who made the day possible and to my sweetie for the roses he brought to tell me how proud he was.
So. The lessons?
After completing my Holistic Health Practitioner certification, my dream was to teach a workshop. But as many of you may relate to, I felt like I had to read one more book or complete one more workshop myself, etc. Always, "I need to complete one more thing" to be ready. Well the one day I decided I would just email Mt. Nittany Institute and ask what I would need to do to be able to teach a workshop. I thought, the worst they can say is no. But the response was, "Sure, send us some information about what you would like to do." "We are scheduling our spring workshops right now." I was stunned, excited, and of course the, "OH JEEZE, now what have I done?" came up. I was expecting a little ease-into-the-idea time. I laughed to myself and thought, be careful what you spend your time manifesting, it could come to you more quickly than you're ready for. Sometimes, when it's the right opportunity, all you need to do is get over your self doubt and just ask. Sometimes it really is just that simple. Now this workshop has yet to come in May, but with wind in my sails and workshops on the brain, I was also talking to Sylvia about them...
And the manifesting continues...
After spending some time with Sylvia over the past year, I thought how wonderful it would be to teach a crystals class with her. But my old friend, self doubt, came sneaking back in. Who was I to ask such a thing of a very experienced Reiki Master and crystal healer? So I decided to take a step back. I said to her one night after a Reiki session, "You should see if you could teach a crystal class at Mt. Nittany and I would love to be your assistant and hand out papers." At that moment, she exclaimed, "We should teach one together!" Of course I said, "YES!" Even though my self doubt was screaming at me to think about it for a few days, I refused to listen. The old me would have caved and decided I wasn't good enough. I really had to force myself to hold fast to the decision, knowing that believing in myself would result in the dreams that I had been envisioning. Amazing. Again, the thing that I had really hoped for the most became a reality in my life.
And there was one last thing I was reminded of during the process of this experience. Yes, sometimes things that seem like obstacles at first can be your greatest allies if you just ask for the highest and best from the situation. Go with your intuition and allow life to unfold as it should. Sylvia and I had originally hoped for 10 paid participants for the workshop considering the time and expense we were putting into it. We had seven. There was talk of canceling and trying again later but we decided that we wanted to go through with it because we felt it was the right thing to do. Later, we learn that a yoga teacher training class was being held that same day. A few students of which said they were sorry that there was a conflict. They wanted to attend ours too. So admittedly, we were a little down about our "obstacles" but very excited and grateful for the participants we did have and we were going to have the best darn workshop we could have.
What happened the day of the workshop was incredible. We had breaks throughout the day that seemed to fall at the same time as the yoga class's and students would stick their heads in the door and remark about how good the energy felt and that they were sorry they had to miss it. Sylvia later told me that at least 7 people wanted to know when we were offering it again and another woman from our class said she knew others that would be interested. Yet another woman offered to let us have it at her yoga studio and we are currently working out a date and other arrangements. So in the end, we had even more inquiries than we would have just from people being able to see and experience the energy of the space PLUS we were able to get valuable feedback from current students to use toward another offering. The obstacles were our greatest asset toward the highest and best outcome. Just as we had asked for.
It really was an amazing experience. And the added bonus is that I now have even more stories to support that manifesting, faith, and gratitude will bring you the results that you seek if you move out of the way and let them.
