Keeping Going: Solo Ventures and Shared Endeavors

by Stephanie F. Earls


What inspires us? What motivates us to do what we do, learn what we learn? What keeps us going? Is it our own internal drive? Divine intervention? Greed? Love? Fear? 

Call it what you will, at the root of any of these ideas there is a balance we seek between individual exploration and group creation.

I talked with a friend recently about these questions: Why teach?  Why continue to study? What motivates us to keep learning when we have the qualifications and established classes already? Why not just hunker down and practice in our own little world? 

It reminded me of a recent experience at Boston Common.  A few weeks ago I walked in the park. Despite the cold and drizzly day, spring had arrived and the park was magical: amazing trees with textured trunks and leaves, sparkling water, flowers in bloom, music in the air, ducks and swans milling about, and people. It was alive. I was alone. I paused on the bridge for a while to listen to a guitarist and soak in the sights and nourish myself. It was a sweet moment, appropriate for me alone that day and still, I left with the wish that I could have shared it.

When I returned home I shared what I could through words with my kids. Hearing about it lit them up. A couple of nights ago I returned with them, to the park, and we enjoyed the place and each other’s company. After a walk we played in the grass, each of us doing our own thing: cartwheels, sprints, jumping, relaxing.  I had the urge to do some yoga, but my body was tired and sore. I watched my kids flip and run, and the urge overwhelmed me and I decided to try a handstand or two.  As soon as I started to practice, our little group of four came together. My kids started to ask me questions about postures and wanted help getting into some.  They offered information they learned from friends on the playground about back bends. They were curious, excited and alive and it drew me out of my tired/sore self and livened me up.  It was a moment when though I thought I’d had enough yoga this week, the exchange gave it a whole new dimension. The park, yoga, became about more than just me, or any one of us and about all of us. What was inspired by my solo trip to the park became our trip to the park. My practice turned into our practice. The experience was elevated.

So while I ponder what motivates and inspires me, I realize there is a balance to find between solo ventures and shared endeavors. It is the reason the park was delightful alone and together. We get to know ourselves in different ways when we practice alone or get to share. They each inform our self study, our evolution: a self propelled (bigger than our self) desire paired with a quest to share, communicate, relate.  We are creative beings, a blend of autonomous individuals and communal creatures.

When I look at the teachers who inspire me it is clear that part of their self sustained spark brightens when they get to share their experience, knowledge, understanding, questions. And likewise they are only able to share because they take the time to nourish themselves in their own way.  There is learning that comes in solitude, a time to hear our own voice. There is learning that comes from the share, as each student or partner or teacher in our practice (life) holds a mirror up in a way that helps us see ourselves more clearly. 

So we find our balance, our solo venture and our shared endeavor.  We share because it completes our quest to create and inspire ourselves beyond a thought and into action. Once we've nourished ourselves, as teachers, friends, co-workers, parents, lovers, we have the chance to inspire and empower the people in our lives so that we can continue to inspire and empower ourselves. We do this best by sharing what we love, answering questions about it, showing it, learning more, going deeply into the well of the things that bring us to life and letting them saturate us so that we can nourish ourselves and the people around us.

The artist paints, the writer writes, the yogi practices, to answer the call of their soul first, to explore their solo venture. And they know each creation/art/calling, once shared, takes on a new dimension and ascends to a level of co-creation which far exceeds the potential that expression had on its own. It becomes a shared endeavor. This is the nature of expansion, of love, of true creation and I believe, one of the defining factors in what drives us as teachers, friends, parents, lovers, people.