What is this feeling of dread?

That is a question I had started to ask myself hmmm.. about a year ago..  I had become aware that I was always slightly dreading everything I did.  I could feel this heaviness come up energetically before social events, grocery shopping, in relationships and yes, even teaching a yoga class... ah, darn, I'm not perfect.

This is something I've been trying to figure out for a while.  Today while I was teaching my second morning class at CPY Woodbury, IT HIT ME!  Hallelujah.  I realized that the old-belief/thought pattern went something like this:  "What's the point of giving fully if I know it's going to end someday?"  There have been a few milestones in getting me to this realization.  I recognized the strong clinging I had/have to 'positive' experiences, I cling tighter to 'good' then I do to 'bad'.   

This morning I was cueing my class to breath 'all the way in' and 'all the way out', the words hadn't ever come that that way before, and they were doing it, for an hour!  and it was AMAZING.  What a power group of yogis.  I feeling them give love all the way out and breath it all the way in.

I want to be engaged fully with my students, with the people I love in my life, with my schooling, the the butterflies, with the cricket I found on the studio floor this morning, with people I encounter at coffee shops and stores... I want to CELEBRATE this life.  Each person or experience like a bright, rainbow firework shooting across the sky of my life.  I celebrate fully and am grateful BECAUSE I recognize they won't always be here, even if it's through death, eventually all experiences cease, and then something new is born of the ashes.  The source of all life is always expanding, condensing, transforming, transmuting... enjoy these forms while they are here!  To stay partway closed up, fearing the loss of the relationship/yoga class/ice cream cone/job/experience is a life partway enjoyed.

Thank you amazing yogis for guiding me to this truth.  Namaste.