The Center

This Is : The Exact Middle

What’s in a Name?

Allow me to reintroduce myself in my spirits calling: 

Taj Harprem Kaur 

Pronounced 

“Taj-HUDprem” said in one word or name 

Meaning the Goddess Lioness princess of love in God’s splendor, creativity and radiance. When I heard the name and felt it’s transmission, I knew it was mine. I knew it was the meditation of my soul. 

If I were to describe meditation in one word or sentence it would be “practice” or  “a painstaking dedication to practice”.

When taking over Yoga House, I was asked the question “What are doing with the studio?.” A question I might of asked myself 100 times before I could truly answer it.

I started to unravel.

What is it that I do as a Yoga Teacher, my process, what is my purpose in teaching?

I unraveled my understanding of what it means to nurture and care for, I unraveled what I thought I knew about my practice.

I left my self blank. I almost felt it was more important to not answer that question. As it was so clear that if I could immediately answer, my ego was still the driver and that is most certainly NOT what I am doing as a leader of the yoga community.

I stopped.

I simmered.

I went within and asked myself, How do I answer this question for myself, not for the satisfaction of having an answer for those who asked, but really answer within:

“What am I doing with Yoga House, with the yoga community, beyond my goals, beyond my mission, beyond my statement, what is my core value beyond being a place of sanction, inner peace and self discovery?” “What is it that I am really trying to do here?”

The question shook me. I didn’t like it. 

There is an obvious answer in there to the question, but it goes deeper. That I everything I do with Yoga House, the community, is interwoven in my life, in my calling, in my family, it is all apart of it, apart of me. That these identities or hats I wear are all interwoven like a fabric of my life, a creation, pieces and patches that I have found and sewn in along the way, to create the mosaic of my soul.

Deep Remembering

After my pause, I felt a deep call to receive a spiritual name, what is the name for all of this!? It wasn’t till I received it, that I knew I was reacquainted with a huge part, if not all of myself. It was such a deep remembering. There is more in a name, there is meaning, there is a transmission or transmutation. Reading the name and hearing it, revived a deep inner knowing beyond thought, knowledge or even wisdom. I was profoundly surprised and inspired with how fitting the name is.

RADIANCE, LOVE, JOY AND LIGHT DANCING WITHIN THE CREATIVITY OF GOD’S SPLENDOR.

If there were ever words to describe my heart and soul in action – THOSE ARE IT.

I felt seen, I felt heard, all in a name.

So it is simple; I am here for love, I am here for joy, to be the boundless radiant love and light of creators splendor, to dance, to sing, to learn. TO LILA. (Sanskrit for Divine PLAY). Lila isn’t for the sunny days, Lila is for the storms. How to dance, to love, to play in the toughest of weather systems and when we are aligned in God’s Splendor, trusting, moving, we truly dance with grace within the current of the universe no matter how uncertain it might be.

So Here I am. I am a living embodiment of my joy, or so I meditate.

It has been an organic process getting to know my name as a sound current internally before I introduce myself formally. To be honest, I am still in the process, but I am in the beginning stages of reintroducing myself through my spirits transmission or rather my purpose as a whole. This has been my life long mission, to live in my heart and grow outside of it, to follow what it is that I AM supposed to be, by my purpose, by my name, by my ancestors and by the long golden chain of teachers that come before me.

I am finding that this process of living in my spirits name is very much apart of my spirits motivation. A dedication, a discipline and a commitment. This journey of getting to know my spirits mission through a name has been intimate before authentically stepping into it. However that is my process.

Recap & Reconciliation

As I have been in a place of rest, pause, reset and reconcilation with myself, there have been a few seismic shifts that propelled wonderful waves that WE, my partner, Adam and I are so excited to share with our community!

 Let’s recap and reconnect on the bounty this year has brought.

First, let me just say that bounty doesn’t always come in the form bliss and abundance but sometimes work work work. AND MOST OF ALL Practice. Practice. Practice.

Its soul stretching and yet so rewarding. 

We started the year creating big intentions after the intensities of last year. 

Needless to say we definitely learned a new meaning of “Never challenge worse”.

I feel the vibe between 2020 – 2021 is to really see the light in all the dark. To constantly CHOOSE to see the light and fall back on it, as creator so desperately desires from us. You are in a dark room, it’s easy to perceive how dark it is, but it is a practice to see the light and if practiced long enough with painstaking dedication, not only will you see the light, you feel it, you breath it, you become it.

The opposite is always present on this polarity planet, so wherever there may be darkness, there too is light. We have to CHOOSE to see it and live it during these times of transition and that is the practice, that is the meditation. This doesn’t mean disregard, it means see it in balance. See the dark room to invoke the light inside.

A lot of us experienced great challenges last year and some of us have seen some of the hardest, darkest days they have ever seen this year. Maybe deep down it felt better to “leave” 2020 behind versus embracing it. At any rate my goal this year was take the path of least resistance, to really trust this chaotic uncertainty process that swarms the current. That is THE PRACTICE.

The Daily Practice or The Beast of Burden

I used to think I needed a daily practice in order to bear it all, in order to trust it all, to have the mental strength it takes, but I found all parts to this path are holy. Ive been steady on a path of growth and evolution for the last 4 years becoming the best version of myself and everything up until now has been a steady path till recently being thrown off my path. The peak,  just before falling out of balance, was meditating once sometimes twice a day for up 4 hours or more to slowly fizzling down to nothing. Where for a few days almost a week we saw the longest span we’d ever gone since dedicating to this path. It feels weird when you don’t show up for yourself, sometimes there can be a pressure so big that says “if you can’t show up for yourself then what can you really show up for, Karen?”. But that’s not the point to pressurize ourselves to the point of breaking. To beat yourself up to become a wild fanatic about Meditation or widdle yourself down to a numb. The purpose is to build the grace bank so that in times in need when meditation is not present, you are still carried, supported and showing up in grace in the most pressurized times. The road to grace asks us to approach it with grace. 

At some point through the beginning of the year from all the classes, courses, workshops and offerings, from coming home and being a full time mama, to getting absolutely no sleep with my youngest, Mayan, it felt like everything caved in all at once. All of a sudden I had nothing else to give, postpartum depression came rolling in hot like a runaway truck aflame from the downhill propulsion. All from lack of nourishment and self care, and just like that off the path. I didn’t realize how delicate I was or the situation was till postpartum and nourishment became everything for my longevity, as a human nourishing other humans. So much of the need for balance in our life is a scream for help internally from our gut, our hormones, to our nervous system and everything in between.

The cry for balance has never been so loud, but I have so many tools how come this is a constant, well, balancing act?

But I always say “If you never get thrown off your path how do you know how get back on it – if you never been lost, then you’ve never really had to learn how to find yourself, find your way back hOMe. The meaning of truly “finding ourselves” comes from a place of rock bottom darkness where light cannot be found. Infinite stories and lifetimes show that people found their path, found their calling through the darkest of places in their lives.

In the moment, I felt fine, I was getting by, I was humbly in survival mode. I was going through the motions and was going far too fast to really see how run down I was becoming. I was too close to the edge see how far I was falling.

Luckily a few moments shook me awake where I started to take perfect steps back to center to nourish myself and come back to the light before I went any further.  I know this road you see because I have been down it before, this is why I know yoga. 

“It’s So Perfect!”

“Its so perfect” our mantra of this year has given new meaning in the art of dancing through the storms. It if wasn’t meant to be, it simply wouldn’t be. So why question it, why question source, It’s the path of the least resistance. It’s so perfect is announcing the holiness of creator in all things, in all times, in all circumstances. It’s saying I see you GOD and trust what it is that you are asking of me, I trust you will carry me through my circumstances.

Around the dawn of spring, after the courses came to an end, we began a month long Kitchari cleanse to reset the gut and restore, Ojas or “vitality”. It was so yummy to cleanse together as a group to spend this time reducing toxic consumption. It was eye opening to see all the different forms of consumption from food, drink, information, opinions, social media internet and so on.

During the time of the cleanse we also started to internally take whole food vitamins and pure essential oils and blends. Herbal medicine was really speaking to me loudly and revealed a huge passion of mine.

Going Slow

Going slow also gave back so much energy, during this time, it was a perfect time to reaccess  what nourishment means on a Mindbody level. It was a time. To pull out the weeds and create a fresh start. This service to myself is ultimately my service to Creator, my service to all. It was so clear to see the only reason why things were slipping was a lack of attention on myself. How am I going to help serve this community if I am not nourishing myself? Care becomes haphazard when we allow for a lack of self nourishment. I need to be in service of my self from a place of godliness if I am going to be in service of community in holiness.

During this time we unplugged, unplanned and let ourselves come undone. 

Adam (co owner/ husband) and I started doing cranial sacral therapy as well as brain integration with Yolanda Del Hierro and saw seismic shifts in our personal life.  As we reset our gut, we also reset our brain.

Launch Trajectory

It was an investment in ourselves as we realized what it would take to show up for our growing businesses, our family and ourselves. Since the beginning of the year till now we have been making those changes. Adam and I started this year with big goals and dreams, we call 2021 our launch pad year.

Well to keep up with our “launch trajectory”, to keep up with the momentum, we started taking essential steps for longevity. 

I did a talk at mother earth on daily practice and how it can stir great waves of change in our lives. At the time I felt far from my daily practice, disconnected, yet still showing up, only it felt like parts of me showing up. After the talk I watched it and was so blown away with its mild to moderate coherence, as during the talk I had no idea if I was making any sense. I felt my passion and saw my vision of daily practice and its profound effects.

It stirred yet another opportunity of personal development with one on ones with clients. Which stirred a huge insight to another part of my passion. Working directly with my clients feels far more fruitful than just hosting class after class. I have been teaching yoga in a class setting for nearly 9 years now and I am ready to take my teaching practice and wisdom to the next step. Where care and nourishment is personalized to the individual because by now we can see that the one size fits all model is not a real thing in Yoga or life.

Personalized Protocol

After several weeks and seeing such a positive shift with our oils, we dedicated to wellness protocol with doTERRA essential oils, taking our oils internally as a supplement long with our supplements. Our go to is Frankincense for mental emotional stability its myriad of benefits as well as Copiba for inflammation, one drop under the tongue. We also started talking science based supplement protocol to help nourish our cells and fuel regeneration process. We saw such an incredible shifts from our new wellness protocols that we began sharing with our community offering personalized protocols for individuals looking for the same momentum. This personal development has become a mind, body, heart centered application of wellness. Where we offer personalized Yoga + Meditation + plant medicine protocols to suit to the needs, concerns and aliments of the individual. In this way we can take charge of our wellness and feel empowered that we are the reason behind the changes and goals achieved. We are so profoundly inspired by all the shifts we have seen already in our clients that we are here to share and help our community make great  waves to also become the living embodiment for their joy!

Focused Wellness >>> Empowered Community

It’s been such an empowering journey to have focused wellness in our family, in our studio, and community. Needless to say we have far surpassed our goals in such a short amount of time, we are blown away! Mayan our son, is sleeping through the night. We are back in routine, enriching our daily practices. We are focusing on nourishing our beings as a whole as THIS is the true path of yoga, wholeness integration.

We truly believe it happened so fast, because of all the different healing modalities from Cranial to Brain integration, from full body nourishment and support, to having a sustainable + easy plant medicine protocols right at our finger tips and of course a whole foods based supplement regime to fill the gaps. We are getting more rest, nourishment and overall relaxation. We have truly paved a path of longevity for our launch pad year, it took some precarious questionable steps in the right direction. Both Adam and I were at a point of uncertainty on what to do next but we knew its only up from here and there is so much at stake, so much rooting us on! With great faith and joy we made it happen! So as we meet on this half day, half way through the month, half way through the year we want to inspire and encourage you to nourish and uplift your light as we carry over to the latter part of the year. In the name of service in the heart of source, let’s do good and breathe the joy we yearn for.

As we gear up for our plant based mobile cafe coming soon! Along with studio upgrades we are ready for the momentum we are creating for ourselves our hopes are to empower the community  along the way! 

All this great bounty started from being knocked off our path, being thrown out of balance, it goes to show that all parts of this path are holy. That we need to fall out of place, out of balance to reinstate our commitment to the process a whole. Alas, the life of growth, the life of a yogi. Sat Nam Dear Ones.

See you on the Mat !