Todd’s Journey: Overcoming Fear to Find a New Way of Life

I've written so many times on this blog about my experiences in Todd Delaune's classes (Let Go Of the Stuff, ReDirect The Drunken Monkey,Yoga Through Tears just to name a few). To say his words and wisdom have inspired me would be an understatement. His messages in class have not just given me inspiration, they've taken root in me and helped me grow and find strength and happiness and peace and stillness in otherwise chaotic times.

So I thought you should meet Todd and hear his story. Thank you, Todd, for being such a wonderful teacher and inspiration!

Todd's Journey:

"I took my first yoga class at a gym, and it was a horrible experience. The teacher didn’t seem to be concerned with me what-so-ever.

It was classic gym yoga, and I told my friend, who had encouraged me to try yoga, “that sucked, and I’m never doing it again.” She then took me to a real yoga studio, and the clincher for me was Savansana. I had never in my life found that kind of softness or relaxedness or quiet. In Savasana I found stillness and I thought, “What is this? I want more of this.” And that’s what kept me coming back.

I watched my friend go through teaching training, and I saw her undergo this amazing transformation, like the caterpillar to the butterfly effect. I had some money saved at that point, and I thought, “Should I get a flat screen TV or do yoga teacher training?” And I made the right choice.

In the middle of 2003, my mother committed suicide. I don’t mind talking about it. Suicide is one of the top ten ways people die and most people find shame around it. It’s discussed under hushed tones. And that persistence of shame is what’s going to maintain suicide. If instead we could talk about it, address it openly, maybe we could help people.

So, in the middle of 2003, my mom died and my teacher training began, and the training I went through was almost half group therapy and half yoga, which worked out perfectly for my needs. It was extremely therapeutic and because of it and the people in it, the training prompted me to get therapy, and the therapy prompted me to, at the end of teacher training, to quit everything.

I quit my job. I quit my life in Atlanta. I packed my car and drove around the country, for almost a full year. I became a “rubber tramp,” that’s what they call living on the road out of a car. I was following in the footsteps of Alex Supertramp, his real name was Chris McCandless. I didn't know anything about who he was until halfway into the trip. I read the book about his life and death, Into The Wild, in Boulder, Colorado, in one day. I went to a library, sat on the floor and read his life story and was just blown away. I felt a kinship. I was pretty damn lonely on the road and to read that others had a remotely similar experience was nice.

A lot of people find his story to be really sad, but I find it to be uplifting. Most people never really live. This kid, after graduating from Emory, and doing all the things he was told he “should” do, he finally decided fuck it, I need to do something for me, and in the two or three years before he died in Alaska, he lived more than most people do in their entire lives. I felt a deep respect for his choices, even though his choices may have cost him his life, still, HE LIVED.

I traveled for the year and came back very changed as a person. I went through the full cycle of dealing with my mother’s death, and I experienced life.

So much of my life I had lived in fear. For instance, I had always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon. And I kept telling myself, someday I’ll meet the right person, and we’ll visit the Grand Canyon together, because I was scared to do it alone. And that trip around the country was almost entirely solo. I learned a lot of things, and one of them was overcoming fear.

I came back to Atlanta, and fell right back into that corporate job for two or three more years. Again, I was scared. Fear comes up for me a good bit. I was scared to quit corporate money. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to survive as a yoga teacher.

I was a software engineer, and my attempts to write code to help people were often thwarted because the programs wouldn’t make money.

During my teacher training, as a part of the program, one of our homework assignments was to teach a class. So I convinced ten of my coworkers, over their lunch break, to come into the break room and do yoga with me. I saw them come in, in their normal, corporate stressed mindsets, and when they were done, after the end of my class, they were transformed. They were peaceful and calm and happy and connected to each other and I was blown away. In just an hour, I had impacted these people’s lives. Even if just for a little bit.

That was a job satisfaction to that point in my life, I had never known could exist.

I’m a giver, and I realized that helping people find that peace and stillness through yoga, like I found in my first real yoga class during Savasana, that’s what I need to do.

I took a while to save up enough money, and in 2007, I quit corporate forever and have been teaching yoga full time ever since."

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