I still tell people I just moved to Seattle even though it’s been close to seven months since I left Texas and nearly three years since I lived on the East Coast. Whether I’m in an airport, on a chairlift, or in a taxi, the question is usually the same so, where are you from?

I usually stutter, not sure how best to answer. I know I should just say Seattle to keep things simple. I grew up in New Jersey, then I lived in Houston for a little while, now I live in Seattle. My friends tease me – just say Seattle! Does less than a year in a city warrant that type of a response? I’m not so sure. It feels like I’m claiming to be someone I’m not – a Seattleite.

Place is such a distinct part of anyone’s sense of identity.

Where and how I grew up affects my preferences and affinity towards things. It dictates how I speak. What surrounded me as a kid is woven into the fiber of my being. It explains the sense of calm I feel when I’m in the mountains or near water, why I love to travel to Italy, my natural inclination for top quality pizza and genuine Italian food, why I still hate pumping gas, and my appreciation for public transportation.

You can take a girl out of the East Coast, but you’ll never take the East Coast out of her.

It took moving away from New Jersey to realize how much East Coast I have in me. Family vacations to camp, hike, swim, and paddle in the Adirondacks, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine explain why I love to tromp around the North Cascades, Mt. Rainier, and Olympic National Parks in the Pacific Northwest.

Relying on the subway in college as my main means of transportation explains my obsession with taking the light rail everywhere in Seattle. When I smell espresso, I can close my eyes and feel like I’m sitting at the table at my Nonna’s house. When I go to an art market or craft show, I’m transported back to the New Hampshire Craft Festival that I went to with my grandparents when I was little.

While I appreciate that a sense of identity is something that’s fluid, it’s an unsettling feeling when it’s impossible to have all the pieces that make me happy and whole all together in one place. Coming up on 25, I’ve thought a lot about what makes me whole, what makes me who I am, and what I can offer.

This year, my intention is to be more present and to not be afraid to put down roots, even if they will inevitably be ripped up again in a few years if my job takes me out of Seattle. Uncertainty over where I’ll spend the next decade of my life creates an ever-present nagging worry I carry with me every day.

Truth is, my addiction to constant movement, being busy, and downright refusal to stay still for any length of time is stealing the beauty of the present.

For me, being more present in 2019 starts with making Seattle feel like home. It means resisting the urge to always plan a weekend away. It means creating commitments with friends that keep me here in Seattle because someone is counting on me to be here. For months, I’ve shied away from any regular commitments, always blaming consistent work travel as the reason.

On the East Coast, my family and friends can feel my absence, but I’m not sure anyone feels my full presence.

Earlier this month, after spending 45 minutes staring at brake lights in front of me as I crawled my way south on I-5, I pulled into the parking lot of Rainier Health and Fitness with a just few minutes to spare. I grabbed my yoga mat and briskly walked into the gym, anxiously glancing at my watch – okay 5 minutes, you’re fine, BREATHE – I told myself – you’re the yoga teacher, you cannot walk into class all flustered.

I was on the schedule for a second time that Monday, subbing a 6pm Gentle Yoga class after teaching a fast-paced Vinyasa flow class at 6AM that morning and working a full day from my home office. Pair a busy day with terrible traffic and you can imagine the vibe I was giving off.

Yes… yoga teachers get stuck in (and annoyed by) traffic too

I’ve guided a handful of students through juicy and fast paced flow classes at a couple of gyms in the city, but this was the first time I was teaching a gentle yoga class. When I walked into the yoga room that afternoon, I was met with a sea of smiley faces, patiently awaiting class to start. With a variety of ages and abilities in the room, I was forced to go off script and adapt my sequence to serve the students who showed up for class that day. My carefully prepared and practiced flow was not going to work today.

I took a deep breath to calm myself and spent the next hour being fully present with my students, guiding and leading them to a place where they could breathe just a bit deeper.

Gentle yoga to me means a few less vinyasas and a bit more time in child’s pose, but after my experience teaching that evening, I realized that the pace I go through life mimics the speed of my speech – much faster than I even realize. Since I volunteered to cover a few gentler yoga classes this month, I looked in my arsenal of yoga books (now at around 20 or so texts) for ideas and guidance. I thought I should at least sharpen up on the more restorative elements of a yoga practice and incorporate more of these poses into the sequences I was preparing.

I pulled Bernie Clark’s The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga off the shelf and stuffed it into my carry on bag before jetting out on another work trip. I cracked open the book at about 30,000 feet – somewhere between Washington and Colorado.

In my own life and in my yoga practice, I easily fall into a pattern.

Going through the motions, staying incredibly busy, being overtired and overworked – all indicators of a very “yang” lifestyle. As I read through The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, I realized how very “yang” my life and yoga practice have become of late. In yoga, and in life, there’s a delicate balance between Yin and Yang energy. Tip too far in either direction and there will probably be an correction to restore balance.

You can think of Yang as the strong and muscular energy that motivates you to go faster and do more while Yin is the deeper subtler energy of the body that forces you to take a breath. Yin and Yang are complementary energies and cannot exist without one another. As I read through Clark’s book, I felt like I wasn’t really reading about yoga at all. Stay too long in an unbalanced pose and gravity will remind you by bringing you crashing to the ground, but stay too long in an unbalanced life and the universe remind you in subtle or abrupt ways.

As I read, I realized that I have a general disregard for channeling any sort of Yin in my life. I’m guilty of seeking it only when the universe forces me to pay attention.

“Sometimes we wake up with a start and jump out of bed, perhaps since we overslept. When we work long hours for many weeks or months in a row (a very yang lifestyle), our body may seek balance by suddenly making us too sick to work (a very yin lifestyle), or it may gift us with a severe migraine to slow us down. Yang is quickly transformed to Yin.” – Bernie Clark

Welcoming a little more Yin, the yielding, allowing, and nourishing energy I so desperately need, is an invitation to rebalance. Waiting until I’m too sick or exhausted is simply not sustainable. Clark emphasizes that we need balance in all things, and “we can only be yang-like for so long before crashing.”

As I sat on the plane that day, reflecting on all the Yin energy I would like to channel in my own life,  I realized that my mat is just one place to start. How I show up on my mat and the attitude I bring to my practice and my teaching is more important than any yoga pose. In Clark’s words “we do not use the body to get into a pose, we use the pose to get into the body.”

While yoga itself is the cultivation of attention, the balance between body and mind that characterizes a yoga practice – the yin and the yang – is essential both on and off the mat. Carrying that attitude into every day experiences is a game changer.

My yoga practice and teaching style is a mirror to how I’ve been moving through life – a lot of flowing but I’m barely rooted down.

I recently caught up with a friend who lives in Houston, and without any intention to do so, all these thoughts and emotions started bubbling up, dominating our conversation. As I talked to her about this desire to make Seattle feel like home, I already knew how I could make that happen.

Being intentional about buying groceries and actually taking the time to cook a meal is more yin than yang. Actually practicing a slower style of yoga and picking up meditation again is inviting more yin into my life. Consistently getting a full night’s rest and being protective of my time is more yin than yang. Being present and accountable for my yoga commitments is in the spirit of yin more than yang.

All of these intentions are also my path for building roots here in the rainy city.

This week, as I reflected on all the yin energy I want to cultivate, I was blessed with two things.

1. Being in Seattle for an entire weekend, just me, for the first time in December

2. The snowiest February in Seattle in more than seventy years

It was the first Saturday in the year 2019 that I did not set an alarm. I did not have a place I needed to be. Saturday turned into a magical adventure with Nate and Khrystyna, walking over eight miles through the snow covered streets and paths of Capitol Hill, Volunteer Park, and the Arboretum, breathing in the cold air, taking photos, and giggling at the cross country skiers that whizzed by. The universe was undoubtedly sending me a message:

SLOW DOWN! See how much fun it can still be?

Skiing in steamboat earlier this month a bout of treacherous weather ripped through on my last day of skiing, shutting down multiple lifts and pelting my jacket with huge flakes of snow as the wind howled around me. Jake, the ski instructor I was with kept apologizing for the weather.

The truth is, bluebird days when you’re skiing wouldn’t be nearly as special if the weather was always perfect, the moguls were always soft and fluffy, and lift lines were nonexistent. The same applies to my time here in Seattle.

I love my job, my cozy little apartment, seeing snow capped peaks when I walk around my neighborhood, the countless coffee shops within three blocks of me, frequent flier miles and tens of thousands of hotel points. But constantly traveling for work and for fun rarely affords the opportunity to sit, reflect, and let it ALL soak in.

The first time it really hit me that I’ve moved so far from home was honestly January, a full six months after my move date. Sitting in a hotel room alone in Montana, I ugly cried on the phone with my mom and sister.

Why do I live so far? What am I doing with my life? How selfish am I to move so far away from my whole family and think it’s okay?

The demons seem to sneak up when you least expect them to.

As I sat in that hotel room, I cried harder because I felt guilt for crying in the first place. I have a job that I love, in a city that I love, covering an incredible territory, with a family that supports me wholeheartedly and is cheering me on all the way from the East Coast. What is wrong with me?

As my mom and sister calmed me down over the phone, I realized that the good, bad, sad, happy, and fun is all mixed up together and hard to separate. The same job that keeps me far from family is the job that makes me smile and feel like a superstar when I close on a sale. The same city that pelts me with rain from fall through winter blesses me with incredible sunshine until 9pm in the summer time.

Sometimes, the universe gives us a little shove to restore balance. Sometimes, it gives us a BIG SHOVE.

Here’s to embracing a little more yin this year, being a bit more present, and to building roots.

sending all my love and light!

Marissa