Happy Monday! Happy First Day of Autumn! Fall is my favorite time of year… The weather is cooler, the air is crisp and its means my birthday is right around the corner! With my birthday being right around the corner, I’ve spent A LOT of time reflecting on this past year and what changes I want to make for the new year. One of the things I realized was I’ve lost of sense of who I truly am… This is normal though… We all go through cycles within our lives. In realizing this though I vowed to myself I was going to go back to my roots! My marine science roots that is! My hair color is all natural, thank you very much!
In keeping this promise to myself I was able to make a dream of my come true and was offered a position with NJ Sea Grant. For those not familiar with NJ Sea Grant their mission is to promote the wise use of New Jersey’s marine and coastal resources through research, education, and outreach. But I digress… This isn’t anything I’m going to get financially rich off and I’m 100% fine with that… As I’m not doing this for the money, I’m doing it for love.
This past weekend was my first weekend with Sea Grant co-leading a Boy Scout Merit Badge and all I can say is… I was KID IN A CANDY STORE! It felt amazing to get back in the water and teach the kids how to seine and how to do the vegetation surveys. It was music to my ears when I heard “Michelle, what is this?” only to respond with… “What do you think it is?” or “What does it look like?” or actually telling them what it is… Only to hear “Oh WOW! COOL!”. It gave me great joy to watch these boys in the lab.. learning, exploring, and having fun with science. This to me is what learning is all about! This to me how kids TRULY learn and part of the reason why I could no longer be in a traditional classroom any longer. I left Sandy Hook on Saturday afternoon with the HUGEST smile on my face and felt a way I haven’t felt in YEARS! My soul had been restored! Little did I know the restoring of the soul weekend had JUST BEGUN!
From Boy Scouts, sand, fish and science too… girls, yoga, and being a kid again. Yup! Sunday morning I woke up and taught my first kids yoga class at Joyful Living Center. It felt great to be a kid again! We hopped around the room as lost little frogs trying to make our way back to pond and asking all the animals we saw along the way for help. We belly laughed , we sang, and the girls learned they are strong! They certainly were all smiles when they left and honestly didn’t want the class to end. I kinda didn’t want the fun to end either. Once again, I left with a huge smile on my face and feeling at peace. The restoring of my soul was continuing…
From kids yoga, it was kicking off my Meditation 101 workshop! Over the next 7 days I will be leading a workshop on how to meditate, the benefits of meditations, and leading daily guided meditations. This is the first time I’ve done anything like this and am nervous as anything… Thankfully, the workshop is off to a wonderful start… thanks to a little meditating the nerves have subsided and I’m really looking forward to sharing my knowledge on this topic with others. While this workshop is currently closed, I will be offering another free online meditation workshop in November to help with the stress of the holidays. You can register for Holiday Meditation Workshop at http://bit.ly/MichelleMeditation101
What I realized during this soul restoring weekend is… I have so many gifts, so much knowledge to share and absolutely LOVE being able to teach so many people so many different things. When I said I wanted to go back to my roots I thought it meant my marine science roots… Little did I know, I would be going back to my informal education roots and sharing all the knowledge I’ve been blessed with. Get ready… because I’m going to be doing a WHOLE LOT of knowledge which I'm going to be sharing. What to learn something, simply ask and I'll be happy to do a workshop or video training on it.
Keep Smiling,
Michelle
PS ~ I’ll be teaching a free clean eating for all you single ladies starting Oct. 5th Email me at motivationbymichelle@gmail.com for info.
