SharedBliss: Interview with Jane Courtney, Yoga Teacher

Jane Courtney, Sohan Kaur,
Kundalini Yoga Teacher, Washington State

Listening to: Some Chinese pop in celebration of their mid Autumn festival. (I really love the artistry of the video and the mixing of old and new. Campy, too.)

Bliss: New fall scented and colored beeswax candles from here. (We got the orange clove.) I love getting boxes in the mail from them -- they smell so delicious (without smelling grossly sweet or fake). On my bike ride home from the dentist (double ouch there today), I saw pumpkins for sale at a small corner store -- pumpkins!

I have had this interview scheduled for some time now, and it turned out to be perfectly timed: a kundalini yoga teacher telling us about her bliss during the week we are thinking about our sixth chakra, the third eye.

Jane writes about coming to her bliss through dreams and following intuitions; she may have been having a difficult time in her life, but she was still receptive to the clues that started presenting themselves. More importantly, she moved past being receptive and got busy. She saw the clue, picked it up, looked into it further, and then watched for the next one.

Eventually, she'd walked the path that took her to where she was meant to be.

Jane is a great example of contemplative action and active contemplation.

(You can find her blog here (her entry for 9/12 is a full moon meditation!); her website here; and where she teaches, here.)

Describe the PrimaryBliss of your life. How did you come to know that this was your PrimaryBliss?

My primary bliss is my yoga practice. I started Kundalini Yoga two years ago. For me it all started with a Snatum Kaur concert in August of 2006. I was in a really negative space in my life and felt like I just wasn’t getting anywhere. I was very depressed and a friend of mine gave me a Snatum Kaur CD. Right away, my spirits were lifted just by listening to the chants. It just so happened that she was coming to Seattle, and I knew that I had to go see her in concert. It was the most amazing 2 hours of my life. From the moment that she started singing, I started weeping. I had been having dreams about changing the world with music, and I knew that there was something more to the music that she was singing than I could see. I started doing some research on her and came across Kundalini Yoga. Just reading the explanation, I knew this was exactly what I had been looking for and dreaming about. I immediately went looking for where I could take classes but could only find the teacher training in Oregon. So I thought … “they always say if you want to master something teach it” and I knew that I wanted to teach Kundalini yoga. I had been doing yoga for 6 years so this was not too big of a step.

What types of choices and sacrifices did you make to be able to craft this bliss-filled life?

When I decided to take the teacher training, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for it. At that time, I didn’t have any extra money and was not sure how to make it work. I was able to work out a payment plan with the teaching facility and I was on my way. The sacrifices came when I was gone from my family for one weekend a month. I had a daughter who was 8 years old at the time, and I had just had a son who was just over 2. I hadn’t left them for any long period of time, and it was very hard at first to be away from them. However, it was also a great way to get my children to spend more quality time with their father. So it was both a sacrifice and a blessing.
How does your PrimaryBliss radiate out into the rest of your life?

Kundalini yoga radiates through my entire life. It gives me strength and courage to face my fears and my problems and it also gives me great bliss after I have finished a set or done a meditation. I also love teaching. It was very scary at first to be the center of attention, but I just love being able to share Kundalini Yoga with all of my students. To see everyone blissed out after class is the best sight I can behold.

What are some other activities that also give you this sense of bliss? Things that make you lose track of time?

I also love hiking and getting out into nature. Just being in the middle of the woods with my children is another bliss in itself. I could spend my entire life outside. I also love to be in the water. I am blessed to live on the Hood Canal and swimming in the water is so healing.

What is your daily or weekly spiritual practice?

My daily practice is to add a Kundalini Yoga set every day. The last 6 months I have been working on Nabhi Kriya and doing a silent meditation.

What music is your bliss?

I love Snatum Kaur, Shakta Kaur and Donna Delory.

Name books or authors/poets or people who are your bliss, who influenced your bliss.

My most influential books have been The Power of Now and A New Earth by Eckardt Tolle and The Four Agreements. All three of these books have really changed my life and the way I think about things.

What advice would you give to someone who feels they have not yet discovered their PrimaryBliss?

My advice would be to not go looking but to just visualize yourself in your happiest and wait for it to come to you. When you are ready, you will know exactly what your Primary Bliss is.

Do you have a favorite quote you would like to share?

My favorite Yogi Bhajan quote is “If you can't see God in all, You can't see God at all” I think on this everyday and try to see the best in everyone. If I can’t I say a blessing onto them and hope that they find peace within themselves.

There is the missing link, I think, for some of you expressing confusion about finding your bliss. Though I do believe that we always know what it is, Jane points out that you will know "when you are ready." So, some deep-breathing patience seems to be an ingredient. Frustrating, yes, but it's like having a problem and finding the solution in the shower -- the solution came because you relaxed and forgot about it.

In the meantime, keep doing what you need to be doing anyway -- yoga (or some sort of physical form of spiritual exercise), chanting (or some type of prayer or intention setting), and journaling...or dream boarding or painting or collage building. You might not end up with tears running down your face at a concert, but eventually, you will experience your fully engaged, most blissed self.