{"id":239,"date":"2011-02-24T09:26:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earthsplash.com\/yogaslice\/2011\/02\/24\/did-the-trip-to-india-meet-your-expectations\/"},"modified":"2011-02-24T09:26:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T14:26:00","slug":"did-the-trip-to-india-meet-your-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/blog\/2011\/02\/24\/did-the-trip-to-india-meet-your-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Did The Trip To India Meet Your Expectations?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left\">\n<div style=\"text-align: right\"><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Did this trip meet your expectations?&#8221; \u00a0This was the question I&#8217;ve had to answer since returning.\u00a0 As I contemplate my response, I realize that the question is not applicable. \u00a0I had no expectations. \u00a0Six months before booking this trip, my reason was to learn better ways to cope with stress. \u00a0Quite unrealistic, I think.\u00a0 For example, if one month in a yoga ashram was all that was needed for people to learn how to handle stress, people will be flooding to India. \u00a0So, the &#8216;why did I?&#8217; is still unclear. Perhaps I just needed to get away, but if you knew me, I could\/would have picked an easier trip&#8230;like on a beach surrounded with palm trees :).<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right\"><\/div>\n<table class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"float: left;margin-right: 1em;text-align: left\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\"><a style=\"clear: left;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto\" href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-y3yAIrkcfTI\/TWZq35na3iI\/AAAAAAAAAKU\/-prIgMrv1Bc\/s1600\/Nirala+in+India+01-11+408.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-y3yAIrkcfTI\/TWZq35na3iI\/AAAAAAAAAKU\/-prIgMrv1Bc\/s400\/Nirala+in+India+01-11+408.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center\">Entire group incl. advanced students<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"float: right;text-align: left\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\"><a style=\"clear: left;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto\" href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-__eq4BSbD3w\/TWZroMpfSBI\/AAAAAAAAAKY\/jcdclub0Gf4\/s1600\/Nirala+in+India+01-11+045.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-__eq4BSbD3w\/TWZroMpfSBI\/AAAAAAAAAKY\/jcdclub0Gf4\/s320\/Nirala+in+India+01-11+045.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center\">Karma yoga: gardening with ancient tools<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>I will never forget the 2nd day at the Ashram.\u00a0 Gandhar, the program co-ordinator and his Australian wife, Kate, met with 4 dorms (16 girls) in the library for an introductory session.\u00a0 That evening, I had a migraine from the lack of sleep and the time zone transition.\u00a0 I was a few minutes late but met the group sitting in a circle on a large faded rectangular mat in the small library.\u00a0 As the side of my head pounded, I tried my best to listen without rolling my eyes into my head to the excited group profess their expectations and goals from this course.\u00a0 Each answered the question of &#8216;why are you here?&#8217;\u00a0 Whether it is to teach yoga or to add to their profession, the answers were mainly for the yoga certificate.\u00a0 A couple were not sure if they will teach and others were already teaching and needed &#8216;proof&#8217; of training.\u00a0 They all had justifiable reasons, afterall, they travelled from different parts of the earth to a yoga teacher&#8217;s training program.\u00a0 When it was my turn to answer, I reached deep down, hoping to find that true answer, the one I didn&#8217;t have the few weeks before leaving on this trip.\u00a0 I looked at Gandhar and all I could come up with was &#8216;I have no idea why I am here.&#8217;\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t mind the amused faces and chuckling around the room as it was (and still is) really what I felt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Did this trip meet your expectations?&#8221; \u00a0This was the question I&#8217;ve had to answer since returning.\u00a0 As I contemplate my <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/blog\/2011\/02\/24\/did-the-trip-to-india-meet-your-expectations\/\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india-yoga-training-2011","category-sliderimage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Nirala-in-India-01-11-0601.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsplash.com\/earthsplash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}