by Kara-Leah Grant
I just wrote some 700 words and I realised that I’ve been telling the same damn story on this website for the past five years. A story of struggling to earn money through teaching yoga and writing.
And now, I’m dropping the story and simply saying:
I give up.
I’ve had enough.
I don’t care anymore.
I’m going to stop trying to earn a living from writing and teaching.
Oh, I won’t stop writing, nor will I stop teaching. These things I will continue to do, always and forever.
But no longer will I attempt to earn my living from teaching and writing.
What will I earn a living from?
I have no idea. Right now I’m focusing on the letting go, and feeling all the sadness and disappointment that surrounds it.
What I do know, unequivocally, is the value of my work. I know that what I write and what I teach has enormous value, and has has a big impact on people’s live.
The amount of money I’ve earned the last few years in no way determines the worth of that work. Nor does my lack of financial success determine my value in any way.
This I know.
I also know that what I have been trying to do, for a number of years, has just not worked. I am a lousy promoter and salesperson – I don’t enjoy the hustle and I just don’t do it well. I do best when I can just show up and do my thing, whether it’s teaching or speaking or writing.
And after cancelling yet another workshop due to low numbers, I give up – on the pushing and the striving and the trying and the hustling and everything related to trying to make things happen like creating things and launching things and promoting things.
I’m done.
For a long time I’ve believed that personal success was completely dependent upon the individual – work hard enough with the right attitude and you can be anything and do anything.
Yes, I read Ayn Rand when I was a teenager and I liked and believed what she said.
I’m now questioning that.
I’ve long believed that yoga and meditation practice was the key to shifting society. That if enough people practiced yoga and meditation it would completely revolutionise our world. And so, I saw my teaching and writing as the ultimate way I could serve this world. I could help people wake up.
I’m now questioning that too.
I look around at the yoga community and I don’t see a lot of integration between yoga, sustainability and social justice. I don’t see that many yoga teachers making any kind of effort at all to make their classes accessible to disadvantaged populations.
I question whether the money I donate annually to the Yoga Education in Prisons Trust through the sale of my books is enough.
I had great fantasies of selling 10,000 copies of my books so I could turn around and write them a check for $10,000. That hasn’t happened – yet. Although I have donated something like $2000 over the last two years. But now, I don’t think that’s enough.
I don’t think I am doing enough socially and politically.
I watch dear friends like Marianne Elliot and Lindsay Alterton get involved in politics and activism and I wonder – is that where I need to be?
I read articles like this one about a 17 year old homeless boy in Auckland and I wonder, what more can I do?
And all this focus that Ive had over the last four years on building a career and earning a living through my passion seems… self-obsessed and self-absorbed and self-indulgent.
Because what the fuck is the point in being “successful” when other people live in abject poverty?
Eleven years ago I had an awakening. It fucked me up big time and it took years to recover from but it was also incredible. I experienced myself as no-self at all. I felt the truth of the universe.
For a long time, that sustained me through the painful rebuilding of self afterward. But lately, I began to feel like I had fallen asleep again. Like I was missing something. Like I had got all caught up again in the illusionary world of maya. Trying to get somewhere, be something, do something.
I’d become all about me, me, me again.
All of these threads are beginning to weave a new story… one of giving up on personal success because I don’t care anymore. One of giving up earning a living through teaching and writing because I have failed repeatedly. One of looking out at society and asking, how can I best serve, given my talents and skills?
Because I am talented, and I have skills. But most of all, the eleven years of personal work I have done have lead to a strong sense of personal power that’s not rooted in any sense of ‘I’.
‘I’ am nothing, with nothing to prove, nothing to believe, nothing to say even. I am not here to make you wrong and me right, even if you’re John Key or an oil giant. We’re all just a part of the play.
And it feels to me like that means I’m ready to step back into the world and do what’s required – whatever that might be.
For now though, I’m doing nothing. I’m letting go and allowing whatever to happen.
Yet I’m also being practical. I need to earn money to pay bills and my wages. So I am running a sale on all versions of my books, The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga and Forty Days of Yoga.
Use this coupon igiveup and you’ll get $10 off any print or electronic book.
Buy one for you. Buy one for your best friend. Buy one for your sister, brother, mother and next door neighbour. (Email me to inquire about wholesale orders for yoga studios.)
If you love The Yoga Lunchbox, I also invite you to become an Insider. It’s $35/yr. Love the site, spend the money, if you have it. If you don’t, send me a prayer or a blessing instead. That’s just as powerful.
Finally if you’d like to just donate some money because you feel like it, you can do that through Paypal using this email address. Click to see the email address.
Otherwise, celebrate with me this epic acceptance and raucous rejoicing in giving up striving and trying and pushing and hustling, because giving up is all just a part of the dance of life.
This is the next stage of my journey, and not a defeat but a victory.
I don’t need reassuring or sympathy.
Instead, do a dance of joy for me because out of this death will arise a new birth.
I am no longer trying to make life happen.
I am allowing life to happen.
With love, always.
Kara-Leah xx
ps. Book sale ends 5pm Monday June 22nd NZ time.
pps. No matter what happens, The Yoga Lunchbox will continue. I adore this website, and it may not earn me a living, but it has given me a community & I love you all. I’ll always show up for you.
Your way will become clear when you stop and listen with your heart to what the universe has to say. You will know. Don’t force yourself into someone else’s dream. Stay strong.
I could have written this! I am so there with you on the ground, spent and empty. Where is the change we are supposed to be. The “better world” has emerged in a snug, butt-lifting pair of $100 Lululemon yoga pants. I don’t/can’t hustle either but I feel left to the sidelines choking on dust. Thanks for the post. I will follow you! You are not alone 🙂
Hey Jennifer,
Ah those damn, snug, well-fitting, beautiful Lululemon pants. What chaos they have wrought upon our yoga world! But what wonders they have done for our butts, whether we can hustle or not.
And it’s true, the hustle does not come naturally to some of us at all… I’d rather sit on the sidelines with you I think, but maybe we could face away from the chaos to avoid chocking on the dust.
With love,
KL
For once, the truth from someone. I get sick and tired of being the only realistic person I my circle. I’ve tried for 30years to get certified to teach yoga well not really, I’ve been practicing at home for that long. Can’t afford to go to a studio, wanted to teach as of 5 years ago, can’t afford that either. Literally lost $300 deposit and was heartbroken to learn the sweet yogi teacher owner of the schmo literally said “shit happens ” while I was crying that i couldn’t come up with the balance before the beginning of the class. It’s exhausting. I feel for you and support you
Hey Lisa,
Many thanks for your comment. It sounds like you’ve had a long hard road with many disappointments. Congratulations on having a home practice for 30 years. That is an inspiration!
That was a self indulgent and scattered post. Not enlightened or even that readable. Your post left me feeling depressed and uninspired. I usually would never share such a negative opinion, but I teach grade 2 and the idea of celebrating ‘giving up’ is disheartening and really, just plain bad. And ineffectual. Giving up is another term for ‘dying inside’- defeated. With this post you reminded me of how disjointed and muddy and helpless life can be when you decide to give up. So for that, I thank you.
Hey Bianca,
Many thanks for your comment. I always delight in reading all the responses from people, and I appreciate the time it takes to actually leave a comment. Giving up has felt incredibly liberating and freeing and am I curious to see how this shifts the way I respond to life. Stay tuned for more articles on this matter, as I explore deeper into what it means to ‘give up’. I feel integrated, clear and open as I step through into this new phase of life.
Much love,
KL
Ouch. Well, giving up can be a relief. An unburdening. It is not always a bad or negative ending. Sometimes it can be the “deadness” yet dead weight you let go of versus being a loss. It is just another perspective. In a heavy undertow, the way to keep from drowning is to give up, not fight the current. It is all perspective. This post helped me with acceptance of the reality of negativity in my work place that was inhibiting me doing the work I love helping people who live with mental illness. It helped me say “let it go” about trying to change the negativity, and rather just working in my own current and doing good work.
Hey Kate,
Giving up has been amazing. The sweetest surrender ever. Yes, I sobbed my heart out for a few days, yet there was even a sweetness in that. A sense of coming home and allowing myself to be held again. And yes, like you say, a sense of becoming one with the current.
You kind of missed the point of the entire blog post. Its not really about giving up but about giving up on something that is just the material part of what she does.
Putting to much focus on the material aspect of life in many ways leaves us disappointed and unfulfilled, and if we are able to get what we want out of it what is left to gain from it? When life is spent constantly focused on gaining from the things we love doing become a chore, they become a job and they lose that special spark that they give us.
I used to love my job, I’ve been doing it for 10 years now and now it’s just the same thing over and over. It’s a job (a good paying one) but still a job. It allows me to make money to pay the bills, it is not what I enjoy doing it does not hold the same value anymore because the only thing I get from it now is grief, i wake up every day at the same time and do the same thing to bring home a paycheck when I’d rather be doing something else, like expanding my mind and passing on my knowledge to my future family. I enjoy building thing with my hands and saying this is what my mind and my body built, and it doesn’t excite me to go to work and build what someone else told me to build, in the way they told me to do it.
Kara-Leah is not giving up on her dream to teach yoga she is giving up solely on the focus to make a profit off the things she loves doing, and if you were able to think without judgment and be curious as to why she is doing it you’d be able to see exactly what she means.
thanks for another REAL piece of writing Kara-Leah. Your YLB and articles are always fresh and inspirational and you have an honest point of difference in the yoga world. Karma will prevail. I think we get energy from the hope that honesty and effort will win over all the other challenges and distractions. I have recently been inspired by your energy and dedication and can also relate entirely to your story. Being slightly older and male, I have ‘normliised’ recent challenges in my career as symptons of a good old fashioned ‘mid-life crisis’ – which was also as much to do with a thing called the ‘global financial crisis’ and the way that that has affected our societies and communities. I painfully shutdown my dream design business of 15 years but have since reconfigured and rebalanced my working life (which has included finding time for Yoga -yay! ) I have since been more successful operating in a different mindset and pace. Dont ‘give up’ KL – you have priceless experience and skill sets – turn the page and start the next chapter. What is in the next compartment of the lunchbox??
Nga mihi.
Oh I’m definitely giving up the striving and trying and pushing… that has already happened. And out of that deep letting go and surrender, I can sense space arising for clarity to show me the way now. I love it!
KL I know this place and I have been here in different guises many times. Each time I emerge with more integrity, more clarity. About what I am leaving behind, and what space I now have empty, calling for my next creation. As you say it’s also a very practical space, where physical reality demands common sense, or else the balance of our physical lives can’t be sustained. Speaking as one who entered the self employed domain 18 months back, and has been quietly picking away (with little success) at building a healing practice since 2004, I echo your experience of not finding the support you know you work deserves. And knowing it has nothing to do with anything except lack of exposure to the right audience. And therein lies the key – finding your audience. Where no hustle is required, just the honest offering of what one has to offer to people who are able to recognise it. I still haven’t found my audience – it’s taken me 18 months to prove to my satisfaction the telesummit audience is not my audience. Now I know and it’s a relief. Like you I’ve developed some great products and gathered priceless experience. And I’ve started learning from people who know how to promote themselves ethically and effectively, and I’ve even gone so far as to commit myself to a 3 month Adwords campaign with Gopher NZ, who partner with Google. (Very curious to see how that goes – if it doesn’t work it will be just one more way not to invent the light bulb.) In the process I am actually beginning to feel just a little empowered about marketing myself in ways I find enjoyable and acceptable, which is a happy new experience … so the point I want to make is that I am certain hustle is not required once we find our audience and know how to connect with them, which I think neither of us has yet done. And I think your gathering doubts and feelings about the disintegrity you see in the yoga world are your clue that in many ways that may not be your audience either. I know, there’s a small segment who love love love what you and I do, but finding them is like panning for gold! And yet there has to be a way to find them. So we both continue the search, while sustainably living and finding peace in each moment, exactly where we are. Because I find this is our greatest service. To bring peace and light and compassion to wherever we are. What we are doing matters not at all but our Presence and Being is everything. Love love KL, I am so glad you are giving yourself this space of letting go.
Hey Maddy,
Yes it has been an amazing week since giving up. I’m feeling such relief, and clarity. A new way is beginning to emerge, which doesn’t have much to do with earning money and nothing to do with being successful, but everything to do with being. And I LOVE that.
Hi Kara-Leah,
Thanks for sharing such an honest piece with us. Sometimes giving up (also known as surrendering) can be the best thing to do. From my own experience, the more I tried to make money out of my writing, the more messed up and off track I got. Then when I gave up that idea, I was promptly offered a job as a teacher’s aide, something I had never thought I would enjoy. It felt a bit left field to me, a bit off track – but now, 10 months later I use my writing skills, website skills and am developing education skills as well! It gets me out in the world, earns me money, I love it plus it doesn’t suck my energy for writing. So you never know 🙂 best of luck, KL xo
Hey Sara,
Giving up has been amazing… such relief and liberation and I’m actually feeling happy for longer periods of time. It’s wonderful! I think it’s taken me literally 11 years to surrender…!!!!
And no, you never know. I’m stoked to be in this place of not-knowing….
Many blessings,
KL
Thanks for your Post, as it is so true that when you work so hard at something and ends are not meeting; perhaps there are other opportunities?. By the way, I am very much enjoying both of your books that I just purchased during your sale. Have you seen Cheryl Richardson’s Website, http://www.cherylrichardson.com. Her weekly newsletter is a great ‘pick me up’ and would hopefully provide some great inspiration. Wishing you much success, as you definitely have made a impact and difference in my home Yoga Practice and I am so looking forward to reading your ‘inspiring’ Yoga Books. I’m trying to find a way to get back to practicing every day, as my main issue is that I wake up too late to practice, too frequently; lately,and I really notice when I do not practice! Wishing you all the best and hoping you find a path that will provide for your needs as soon as possible.
Hi KL,
Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your insecurities with us. I too, have been going through something similar. I’ve recently completed a PhD, spent 10 years at university. And coming out of it, I’ve realised that while completing a PhD has moulded me into the amazing person I have become, I actually no longer have any desire to pursue that field. I’ve been panicking about how I will proceed, what my career will be, feeling adamant that it is necessary to have a career. My partner kept telling me not to worry, everything will be okay, but I was fighting back, claiming it was important for me to be independent and do my own thing. I spent many nights laying awake as I went through this process, and I was so stressed I couldn’t bring myself to get on the mat–or maybe I was scared of what the mat would bring. I started thinking about more study, etc etc. My partner was adamant that more study is not a good idea right now with so much debt from 10 years at uni (he is right). As I slumped into a depression, with many tears and zero motivation, I reached out to a friend. Although her words weren’t new, they just suddenly resonated with me. She told me to let go and take a break, take a mental break, focus on me. I decided that I was getting carried away, and I was just going to stop and take a break. I started getting back onto the mat and being present. And a few days later, an idea suddenly dawned on me of something that I can do, that interests me, that I feel is important, and that is reasonable. Now I suddenly find myself writing up a business plan.
Sending you positive energy and love along your journey. We are strong and we can do this. Enjoy this time of reflection and congratulations on allowing yourself a break.
Hey Nikki,
Thank you for sharing your story – I love hearing of other people experiences like that. Good luck on your new path.
Hi K-L. What an inspiring read and watch – YES to letting go and giving up the constant push, push, push which seems to be accepted as the norm. Your strength shows through just by the fact that you have stepped outside to question that – and how you can manage to talk with such clarity amidst the emotion shows what a successful communicator you are 😉
I’m excited to follow as your path ahead emerges. Your voice is relevant and touches many X
Hey Wenders,
Such a relief now the push, push, push is gone… however I can also sense how easily it could come back. I LOVE what I do and get so excited by the various projects I have on the go. I suspect staying calm and relaxed and letting life flow through me will take practice!
Well done KL!!! What a courageous article! I can totally understand & have been in similar situations in life. The letting go is such a relief! Opening, releasing & allowing is so liberating!
I love the YLB & your books! You are a truly inspiring person! All the articles on the YLB are so different to other sites & address real issues & topics. I will continue to subscribe.
Sending you love & blessings from Oz:-)
P.s. I will try & think of someone I can buy your books for as I already have your books:-)
Hey Kelly,
It was such huge relief… let go & let god and all that.
Much love to you in Oz!
KLx
I think your word should be detachment, not giving up. You are learning to do what you love without attachment to the results. That is yoga!
Hey Ann,
I give up was the mantra… it seemed to appear unbidden and played over & over and over in me head that 24 hours… I imagine that if I detach had been the mantra – well, it doesn’t have quite the same rhythm.
Interesting that you’re TRYING to give up.Yea your same old story and hanging out your laundry year in year out was getting boring. Everyone has a story of pain and suffering..Its what we have all chosen to experience. Let it go mate. .Yes from this anew will arise and will awaken another layer to surrender, and chapter in your life..Half of what you wrote is ur answer ,the other half is still laundry…You have so much talent and and a way n means to get a lot out of people..Im sure with compassion and faith trust n knowing with patience you will see these growing pains as a huge gift and awakening..
Hey Paul,
Oh God! The cardinal sin of a writer – becoming boring! Unfortunately though, unless you stop reading Musings from the Mat, you will keep hearing my stories of pain & suffering, and keep seeing my laundry. That’s the nature of my writing. I talk about the stuff going on inside… even when it’s dirty laundry. However, I will do my best not to be boring, that I can promise!
Okay…I get it! But I only agree with about 2/3 of your article. When you started questioning several of the things for which you had expressed such feelings earlier, you lost me (well, all except Ayn Rand, with any luck, fondness for her philosophy usually falls apart by one’s mid-30s anyway). There was and remains value in each of those processes that you say you now question.
Have you considered finding yourself a good manager who is suited to and can perform the aspects of your business(es) that you claim to suck at doing yourself?
This is going to sound negative, cause it is! But, your article comes off in a big way sounding like an excuse for “Letting go and giving it all up to God or the Universe or Baba Rum Dum, whatever in lieu of taking responsibility for the mistakes and wrong turns we all experience on the road to personal realization. If you have to give up on something, give up on the expectation of having to do it all by yourself or in the form that you’ve been used to doing it up until now, and ask the Universe for an introduction to those who can & will help. Hey, I’m just sayin.