first name: Sarla

age: 58 

current city: Memphis

living situation: Married with one adult child, 24, now living at home.

occupation: Yoga teacher and studio owner

how do you structure your time and space? I spend a lot of time at home alone, at least until recently, when my son came back from New York to do a show at his father’s theatre, Playhouse on the Square. At this point in my life, I feel that my career has replaced my job as a parent. I recently stopped working seven days a week. There is a fine line, for me, between work and play. Since I am a yoga teacher, and I love yoga, it is often fun to practice and teach. It is also just as often a chore. I have recently given up two private clients and one of my public classes so that I could focus more time on being artistic and creative. I practice mediation everyday, as it is the  source of all my intuition and the foundation of my life as a wife, mother, friend and business owner. I cannot imagine life without meditation.  I sit for at least 30 minutes every day. Oddly enough, my meditation space is in my home office, which also serves as my yoga studio. I think that this combination makes my workspace more sacred. 

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? At 58 I am challenged by the fact that I have fewer years ahead of me than behind. I feel wiser and more aware of the fragility of life and the tendency many of us have to work too much and play too little. I have worked full time since I was 16. I find that as I get older I want to work less, but work more because I have more time on my hands. 

It was incredibly challenging for me when my children left home.  Family is very important to me and I treasure every moment that I can spend with my adult children, of whom I’m very proud. (My daughter, Katie Nichols Cook, is a highly successful realtor at Marx and Bensdorf, and my son, Jordan Sinclair Nichols, is an actor and choreographer extraordinaire.) However, I want to do some things that I have been putting off for most of my life. One of these is writing. I have always sensed that I have a novel somewhere in me and I want to give it an opportunity to emerge. My challenge is setting aside the time each day to write.  To that end, I am now doing The Artist’s Way for the fourth time, and I saw this questionnaire as an exercise in creativity. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? Prior to this season, which I would call “the golden years,” I had “the season of malcontent,” a childhood fraught with violence, confusion, anger, addiction, and what seemed would be a never ending battle with depression. In 1990 I stopped drinking for ten years, a time I would call “the season of re-birth.” I left my marriage to be with the man who is my present husband, started teaching yoga, and established my meditation practice. In 2001, I opened Midtown Yoga, which began “the season of manifestation and hard work.” Nine years later, I feel confident as a woman, a mother, a wife, a homemaker and a very good business woman. I also believe that I am now the yoga teacher I also dreamed of being. 

-what season(s) might your future hold? “The season of  self-acceptance and limitlessness.” I want to take dance lessons. I want to write and sing. I want to give myself the gifts that I have so freely given to my children.

favorite family activity: We love to play scrabble and other board games and to watch movies together.  My favorite thing to do with my family is to go to Florida. I have gone every year since I was 18. We all love the beach at Seaside. 

favorite solo activity:I’m presently working on that. I love to read, but spend very little time doing that recreationally. I also love to take long, solitary walks. I like to swim laps and I enjoy crime shows. 

sources of inspiration: Rod Stryker, my yoga teacher, Swami Rama, Meditation, yoga, friendships, sunshine, good books, the ocean, the sky, and the never ending gift of life.

best MakeShift moment: When I was 40 years old and doing The Artist’s Way for the first time, I got a wild hair to travel across country by myself, from Memphis to Seattle. I did it and stayed there for a month with my then yoga teacher, Felicity Green. The entire trip was a makeshift moment. I never planned where I would stay along the way or where I would eat or what I would do. It was the best thing I have ever done in my entire life, besides having my two amazing children. In retrospect, I think that my whole life has been a makeshift moment. I am not a planner. I am spontaneous and have my best ideas on the fly, including seeing Midtown Yoga full blown the day I walked into what was then The Jett College of Beauty.

Sarla is married to the love of her life, Jimmy Lewis. When she is not tending to the tasks associated with owning and directing Midtown Yoga, she may be found working on her memoirs.