my life – mayah's site

pure rage

today i let out a big scream. one of the biggest that i have had in a long time.

hope and i had gotten in from a walk, where it started pouring down raining when we were about a mile from home. so it was pouring down rain and i went to get all of her stuff off and dry her off. before i could wipe her body down and spray her paws with her antibacterial sanitizer, she was ripping and running through my aparmtent.

i tried to talk a couple deep breaths but i couldn’t manage it.

i screamed a big scream. a scream of pure frustration. pure rage. pure fear.

i literally felt like she was spreading covid throughout our whole place. that with every step it was getting dirtier and dirtier. it made me feel like i was going to die.

so i screamed again.

i screamed again when i finally caught her.

pure rage.

because how could she do this to me? she knows she has to get cleaned off. and normally she waits for me to do it but today she didn’t.

and this isn’t the first time i’ve felt like this with hope. i get really angry when she does other stuff, like eat things she’s not supposed to and hide so i can’t get it her. it makes me feel like she is going to die.

so you see i get the point of rage. i get what’s making me feel like this. so what do i do with it?

i’m not sure. i’m just glad that i’m starting to see it.

feeling pure rage is an interesting feeling. becuase after you are filled with so much shame. that i shouldn’t have reacted like that.

but that was my geniune authentic reaction- to scream.

i’m about 52 or so days into my meditation challenge, entitled the meditation to remove fear of the future. it’s a kundalini meditation that i practice for 31 min each morning and evening, accompanied with a three minute spinal flex before and a two minute rest after.

i’m getting to the deep root of my fears. i want to be safe. i want to survive. i want to live. and i want to do so fruitfully.

and i know that anxiety is just my mind working over time to keep me safe. i know that it senses danger in things that are not.

and i know that i will give myself grace, love, and compassion as i continue to work deeper on knowing and managing my fears.

i say all this to say- anger isn’t a secondary emotion. but rather a flashing signal that something needs attention.

the end of an era

when i first started this page, it was in 2014 and i was 16. i started it off with hair tips, as a new natural just trying to figure things out.

i am so grateful that i created this space for myself. my love of blogging really was due to the fact that it was like an online journal. through writing, i found my voice. i found out patterns in relationships i did not like. i found ones i did like. i found patterns within myself that i did not like. i found ones i did like.

i grew. i changed. i became a more authentic, more mayah version of myself. i grew up. i graduated high school. i went to college. i joined a sorority. i graduated. i moved across the country. i started grad school. a pandemic hit. i moved home. i got a dog. i moved back. i started a yoga business. and so much more. i loved and i lost and i grew all over again.

within the past few months, i started journaling on my own. it felt that it was more of what i needed at the time. i still believe that to be true.

it is with so much gratitude to tell you all that i will not be renewing my website this august.

as i continue to grow love mayah yoga, i have seen that a change is necessary to support my new level of growth. i will be starting a new site, based on my yoga business. i will blog some (i potentially will write about the connection between race, equity, and yoga as that is what my 300 HR YTT is on). i am currently working on the site and pray to have it running by next month (i realized i need new pictures LOL).

i pray that once i announce the site, that you feel moved to subscribe. that you feel moved to practice with me. but most of all, i pray that my words, my struggles, and my successes have helped you in some way. that you learned something that allowed you to connect deeper with yourself and others. that’s what i came here for.

when i first started grad school, my eldest cousin told me that I was doing the Lord’s work (teaching). i believe that that’s still true with my yoga business. this whole journey has felt divinely led. and i’m just grateful to have been a part of it.

may the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on.

namaste,

mayah

language to express needs

for a long time, i felt very unsatisfied with my friendships. it was like i had these wants/needs within relationships that never felt like they were getting met.

like it would either be like a semi-surface level friendship or we were like tied at the hip.

my tied at the hip friendship stage pretty much sums up my undergraduate experience. the relationships reaked of codependency. i think it’s because they were formed during such a transition period where we had all just left our parents home and were scared. anyways, there was drama and dramatic endings that turned into things just fading away. i’ve grieved those relationships and occasionally a wave of grief hits me. and when it does i cope with it as best as i can.

when i ended two of those friendships, i told them both that i just didn’t feel like i was getting what i wanted out of the friendships. and one of them asked me what did i want and my response was that i didn’t know but i knew that this wasn’t it. it was a harsh truth. and in my mind, since i knew that wasn’t what i was looking for, i would make space for the friends that i wanted by ending those relationships. my logic was well how could i have space for the relationships i really want if i’m investing time and effort into these spaces.

and i knew what i wanted because i had seen it with other people. i had seen other friendships where the bond just was deeper. yesterday, i was listening to the Black girls heal podcast about intimacy. and one of the things she said it that sometimes we can fake intimacy. and i think that is what was going on. on the surface, the relationships were close. we hung out all the time, had deep conversations, knew each others likes and dislikes, but there was something missing for me.

when i moved to atlanta i was determined to make friends. i just knew that i would right? lol i’m Black and gay and moved to the Black and gay capital of the US. it was just bound to happen. and then the world shut down and even when it opened up i didn’t leave the house. shoot i still don’t have in person contact with people.

but this is not the point of this, the point of this is that i finally figured out what was missing.

she talked about interdependence. that sense of if you need someone you can call on them. and that in those relationships you don’t feel “bad” for calling. or like you’re a burden. there is a sense of security that comes with the intimacy. almost like you know that they want to talk to you.

and i think for so long i equated that with duration of hanging out, vulnerability, and deep conversations and i think it is all of those things, but i think there is just one more missing piece.

i titled this post language to express needs because for so long i’ve been trying to figure out what was missing. why i could be around a bunch of people and still feel lonely. and it’s because it wasn’t intimate. and maybe on levels intimacy was budding, but it wasn’t in bloom.

i’m happy to know.

slowing down to feel all the feels

as a child i was very in touch with my emotions. as i grew older, i wanted to become more detached from them, but they would still always show up. just in ways that weren’t fun- like blowing up over “nothing”. i internalized a lot of emotions because they were big and i didn’t know how to deal with them.

quarantining (which is what i just have decided to continue calling our “new normal” of leaving the house minimally and not coming in close contact with others) has given me a lot of time to slow down and feel all the feels.

and y’all, it is not fun. people talk about being single as this liberating period of time, where you really discover who you are. and while i do believe this is true, it has proven to be quite a challenge to sit with my big emotions and actually sort through them. pinpointing my needs. figuring out ways to meet them. i would say dating myself is one of the most uncomfortable periods of my life, if not the most.

i constantly find myself wondering, “God when will this subside?” Like when do i get to the point where it’s a passive discomfort, not this active pain. and my answer to myself is always something like “girl i don’t know but i sure hope it comes.”

and i guess that’s what hope is right. the faith that something better will come. and that one day, it’ll be a little less difficult. so please remember, it’s okay to feel big emotions.

cultivating happiness on purpose

i write this as a brief note, while my students are at specials. i have more yoga i want to do (this time hatha (asana) whereas this morning it was about 45 minutes of kundalini (asana with more pranayams and meditations).

in my last relationship, there was a lot of happiness. it was very much this space of finding what made me happy and figuring out how to implement it. and while i’m still grieving the fact that we are in a different phase, i am grateful for all i have learned.

one of my biggest things recently, within the last few months has been trying to figure out how i can cultivate my own happiness. how i can incorporate it some of the practices i had in my previous relationship into my daily life.

it’s been about figuring out what makes me happy and doing it on a daily basis. i read once that your daily decisions make up your life, and that stuck with me.

while practicing non-attachment, i’ve been trying to embrace doing things just because i want to. we are such a “results oriented” society. so it’s like if i don’t get x result, i often feel like it was worthless.

i wrote about this a little bit when i talked about breese, my snake plant that died, that i didn’t feel like it was worthless. and i feel the same abut my last relationship too. events don’t make things decrease in value.

your growth is valuable. so keep choosing it.