A Moment of Reflection
This time of year, always seems to be one of reflection. People spend time with family, which often comes with special dynamics. As the year comes to an end, we often look back on the things that happened and set intentions and goals of where we want to go next. This past week I celebrated my birthday, which ads an extra layer for me personally on this reflective mode.
Our modern digital age can help us to feel good in these times. Facebook never fails, when you wake up to 200 birthday wishes! Many of the messages on social media, email etc are from graduates of our teacher trainings, who are now part of our extended yoga family. Some of them address me as their dear teacher, once in a while someone even uses the word guru. Every time I read it, it makes me stop and think.
Its so wonderful to know that graduates leave the training inspired and feeling empowered to change their lives for the better! And its an incredible honor to be part of that journey. I am personally always very hesitant to take much credit for that. We are all on the same path of self-reformation; we are all struggling to better ourselves; we all make mistakes and fall and climb back up. In that sense, we are all always students and teachers. We take quite some time to stress this point in our trainings.
Evolation yoga has now, since 2009, conducted over 275 trainings and has trained more than 1.500 people. The trainings now are of course very different than our first ones years ago. And it is because of everybody who has been part of it that we continue to grow and change. In every training that I have the honor to be part of, I learn so much from all the participants. I learn from their questions, I learn from their struggles and their victories, I learn from seeing their bodies and their postures, I learn from their outlook on life. So because of that, with each following training I feel I have a bit more to share and to offer.
The first several trainings, it was just Mark and I sharing our personal experience in this yoga tradition. Over these almost 8 years our training team has grown and we have more than a dozen amazing teacher trainers contributing to the process. Some of them are serious yoga geeks! And every time I get to share time with one or more of them in the training environment, I get ignited, my fire gets re-sparked. I admire their different points of views, their different yoga experiences. Their passion for what they do is contagious!
So, in this time of personal reflection I am acknowledging what a lucky girl I am (I just turned 47, can I still say I’m a girl?). How fortunate am I to do what I love, to be in environment of constant growth and change? I can’t think of anything more satisfying. And though it comes with challenges and difficult times, though there is always room for improvement, I would not change this path for the world!
This reciprocal cycle of learning and teaching is truly beautiful and inspiring. I hope you’ll join Evolation and be my teacher, so I can have the honor to be yours!
Also one last thing, Im very happy to introduce our new Yoga Retreats. Come join us in 6-nights all-included retreat in Hawaii or Bali! More info below.
About Zefea Samson
Zefea had her first experience with yoga at the age of 4 when her parents practiced with renowned teacher Angela Farmer in the Iyengar tradition. She forgot about yoga during her teens and twenties and trained for boxing and the combat system Krav Maga. Zefea rediscovered the benefits of yoga when she started practicing Bikram Yoga in her home town Amsterdam. From 2006-2008 she represented the Netherlands as the Dutch gold medalist in the International Yoga Championships, finishing in the world's top 10. Zefea experienced new depths of yoga through practicing while pregnant (up till the day of giving birth).