I’m going to start this newsletter for you today with a kind of sad story, but it gets better so hang with me.

Not so long ago, in a past iteration of Blaine, when I was in the corporate career phase of my life, I didn’t have a lot of true friends.

My closest friends were my triathlon training buddies, but I traveled 100% for my job so I wasn’t home to train with them that much. I had work friends too but they were merely that – work friends.

For my job, a couple of times a year I’d have to fly somewhere like Las Vegas or Orlando for a week of “corporate development” where I’d take classes to develop skills to make me more proficient at my job. 

Often, the corporate development would spill into personal development, which was the worst.

One time, I had to do this exercise where I wrote about my funeral. I can’t remember the particulars but it was something like: “what do you want people to remember about you at your funeral” or “write your own eulogy.”

I sat there frozen. What the hell was I going to write? Blaine was always on time for meetings?!

Then a more chilling thought crept up my spine: It doesn’t matter because no one will go to my funeral anyway. I’m single and I don’t have any true friends. 

I don’t know if I can say that moment was a turning point for me, but I’ll definitely never forget it. 

Fast forward to last week. 

Last week I flew to rural Wisconsin to instruct an Energy Medicine Yoga teacher training. I’m connected to this small country town because it’s the home of Yoga Hive Wisconsin, a sister studio to my former studio that I sold last year.

When the owner of the studio and I planned this event, I didn’t expect much out of the trip except that I’d travel there, stay in her home, do my job and leave.

What actually happened was that I received a week full of love and connection outside of the formal training that I traveled there to teach  Here’s what happened:

• I contacted a studio owner whom I know in a nearby town to see if she could meet for tea.  She not only responded yes, but also invited me to teach a special class at her studio and several of my former students made exceptional efforts to attend.
• I had a lovely dinner with the family of my host including her mother who is also a former student of mine.
• The founder of Yoga Hive serendipitously happened to be in town the exact same weekend I was (she lives in Alaska!) and we had the most fabulous evening of laughing about business and life together.
• When I was lifting weights at a local gym, a former student saw me and exclaimed “Blaine!” from across the room – can you imagine? Again, this was all happening in a small town in Wisconsin.
• And… one of the students who is in my current, year-long program lives part way between where I was and the 2 hour drive to the airport where I had to commute on Monday. She invited me to her home for lunch and made us the most abundant vegan spread of delicious food that you can imagine. 

Friends, my life is totally different now and it hasn’t even been that long since that sad day I wrote about above.

Do you want to know what changed everything for me? Meditation and yoga. 

It’s as simple as that. Wendy, who owns the studio where I taught the special class, wrote about that night on Instagram. I think she said it better than I ever could:

That, is the power of yoga.

It looks like I may not have an empty funeral after all…

PS – If you didn’t read all the words above and skipped to the bottom, here’s the moral of the story: Do more yoga!

PPS – I teach Energy Medicine Yoga on Zoom twice a week and we have a wonderful community. If you want to learn more about it, just email me. I can let you join us for free for two weeks to try it out!