Extended family is proof of yoga's truth that each of us is an essential part of a greater whole. As you practice, you begin to recognize that story you are "writing" as you live and love is an essential part of the whole collection of stories that led to your life - and that will lead to the lives of those to come after you. Let’s promise one another to treat our lives like the treasures they are – and, while we’re at it, to share the stories we collect along our way with those who come after us.
Being sick is a lesson in letting go of control. KABLAM! Your body has taken over. It - rather than your plans - is going to be in charge for a little while. I don’t know about you, but this can be really hard me to accept. I resist, I push, I chafe in mostly futile efforts to keep going, to stick to the plan, to stay on schedule. Which only makes me feel worse – physically and mentally. What makes me feel better – perhaps the only thing that makes me feel better – is letting go and surrendering to reality: I’m sick and I need to act like it. I need to let my body lead the way, even if where it is leading me is straight back to bed on a blue-sky day.
Fun is, in a shocking twist, FUN! As someone who loves to work, and who loves her work, discovering pickleball has been a lesson in fun that feels really important. It is good to take a time-out – to hop and bounce like a kid, to focus on something silly, to play with friends, to set aside goals, growth, and gains for some good, old-fashioned fun. Anyone want to play with me?
Creativity focuses the mind and also releases feel-good hormones, leaving you feeling more centered and less anxious. You don't need to buy an easel or sign up for pottery classes. There are a million surprising ways that you can be creative every day - even when doing the most basic chores. Whether your practice is yoga, meditation, or something else, once you get a taste for mindfulness, a part of you – even subconsciously – will seize little opportunities all day long to recreate that stillness, silence, and spaciousness.
Practicing to do a hard thing such as compete in an iron man, swim across the bay, or hike the Appalachian Trail requires us to show up and do hard things every day. It's important to remember that we’re not training so that the hard thing becomes easy. We are training to become a person who, in Kara Lawson’s words, “handles hard well.” When we know we can handle hard stuff, we are more tolerant of failing and more willing to try again. We trust more in our strength to face our doubts and fears. In short, we are more resilient.
What do you wish you c/would start but can’t/won’t because you are daunted by how long it c/would take you to do it? What if you took a good, hard look at whatever deadline you’ve created in your head for this thing you want to start and gave it a kiss goodbye? What if you decided to shift your focus from “done-ness” to doing? Rather than being focused on the finish line, could you choose to celebrate the fact that you’re doing what you wanted to do? When your inner narrator says (and s/he will), “This will take forever! A lifetime!”, what if you were to choose to reply, as you show up and do the thing, “Luckily a lifetime is exactly how long I have.”?
Tomorrow it will be two years since my brother died. It feels as if these two years have been a compression chamber of sorts. Somehow more life, more emotion, and more growth have been squeezed into these 730 days than in any other 730 days of my life. Sitting here at my keyboard, on the brink of this anniversary that I will never celebrate, but will never not mark, I want to share with you a choice we all must make - to choose to accept grief as the sister of love. We must dive into it and allow it to take us on its journey. This takes courage, gentle determination, and steady patience, but grief can lead us to a heart-space we never dreamed possible.
You and I may not know what to do in the face of the grief, sorrow, pain, and horror that we feel when confronted with the gut-wrenching events that fill our headlines each morning. We may feel powerless, but that is far from true. We each have the power to create beauty in this world. We have the power to act on the love that fills us to overflowing. Each time we share the beauty within us with the world around us, we touch others with love. What gift of beauty will you share today? I promise you, whatever it is, it will matter more than you will ever know.
Yoga philosophy teaches that letting go of extra “stuff” actually frees us. When we step back from our attachment to the stuff we have, the things we have no longer own us. Helping my son clean out his closet reminded me of the power of decluttering and how important it is to the quality of our lives to regularly clean out, pare down and straighten up our spaces, our days, and our minds.
