My Journey To Center

Thanks to our guest blogger, Paul Teodo: Santa Monica based yoga teacher and musician.

 7 years ago, I was introduced to two different passions that completely turned my life upside down.  Yoga and fingerstyle guitar.  It was at that time, searching through YouTube, I found virtuoso guitarist Andy McKee.  His song Rylynn completely changed everything that I knew about the acoustic guitar.  It was epic, and terrifying, and beautiful.  Right around the same time, I wandered into YogaWorks Main St. in Santa Monica and took yoga classes from master teachers Vinnie Marino and Sara Ivanhoe.  Again, my mind was completely blown.  The power and strength required for these classes was like nothing I had ever experienced, and I had a legitimate “out of body moment” in Sara’s class.  Welcome to two simultaneous addictions.  From that moment on, my guitar took on a new form.  I was tuning it to open chord tunings, and exploring the instrument in ways that were so exciting and humbling.  I also began to practice yoga with more and more consistency, eventually giving up all forms of exercise beside yoga and hiking.  I would come home from yoga, and my mind would be so quiet that music would just start to flow out of me.  Yin collides with yang. 

Fast forward to 2015.  I have now been teaching yoga and meditation for 2 years.  I play original instrumental guitar during all of my savasanas, and am in the process of recording my first album.  My life has grown and expanded in ways that I never could have imagined.  I am part of a community of amazing people, and do my best to give back to them as they have given to me.  To be able to make a contribution to the things I believe in on a daily basis is an incredible feeling. 

Find something to be enthusiastic about, get good at it, and give it away.