Yoga For Life is a collection of essays focused on one regular life as seen through the lens of yoga. In them, yoga's deepest gifts are discovered in the mundane activities of daily life - laundry, grocery shopping, raising children, going to work, friendships, gardening - you name it! These personal, insightful meditations bring yoga's ancient spirituality, wisdom, and mindfulness sharply into modern focus.
Yoga is a practice designed to help us find contentment, happiness and faith in every aspect of our lives. Yoga For Life is written to help you as the reader – no matter the level of your practice – embrace the positive thinking, mental resilience, and transformation that develops by taking yoga beyond the mat and into your life.
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Within the darkness of my grief I have begun to sense some light. I feel certain that this journey will be fruitful; that meaning and purpose will return to my life in entirely new ways. My certainty is anchored in my practice. Yoga draws me back (again and again) to my center where I connect with the light within. It is the glow of this light that softly illuminates this dark, uncharted path so that I can walk on into my life.
Rather than hopping on a plane or packing up the car, our main mode of travel these days is our sneakers.But my husband and I have maintained our passion for seeing as much of this world of ours as we can. By deciding to approach our little outings as “travel” or “exploration,” that is what they have become. If you, like us, will be staying closer to home this summer, remember that this doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your travels. It’s a great big, beautiful world out there – even in your own backyard. Stay curious and keep your eyes open. See as much of it as you can.
The little things in life that make you smile can slip by unnoticed if you’re not paying attention. Practicing mindfulness can help. Mindfulness practices such as yoga teach us that, with practice, we can develop the ability to choose our focus, to choose what our mind is thinking or focusing on in any given moment.
Housekeeping is good for you! In yoga philosophy the first of five practices that support our intention to live a spiritual life (niyamas) is purity (sauca). Even 2500 years ago when these practices were codified, our ancient yoga teachers knew something profound – when you take care of the world around you, keeping it clean and orderly, you are also taking care of your inner landscape.
What if we each approached one another with the intention to connect? With the certainty that we could find a shared love if we looked closely enough? What if we reached out across fear and differences and even physical distance to meet one other with kindness and the wish to part ways each feeling better than when we met?
Play is important. It is necessary. Play is a biological drive as critical to our health as sleep or food. Play can help us solve some of life’s toughest problems. When we take a break from a challenge to play, our minds continue to work on the problem. Play allows our minds to create new neural networks and to reconcile cognitive difficulties. Developing a habit of regular play can actually make all of life go better. The ability to work past difficulty or boredom to find the fun is a skill we all have to develop, but if we can embrace the notion that play is not always “all fun and games,” but can involve some discomfort and hard work, we will be better able to find a sense of play in everything we do – even our work. This perspective is a powerful way to make life more enjoyable.
“Things may never go back to normal. You may need to create a new normal. And that’s OK.” These days we’re hearing a lot about a “new normal.” Though the term is having a “moment,” the idea isn’t new at all. In fact, I suspect you’ve practiced it before. In essence, embracing a new normal is to understand that it isn’t possible or even desirable to go back (as in “let’s get back to normal”). Growth is never backwards. It is always forward, into the unknown and the new.
My new little sunflower garden has given me a glimpse of a future that feels hopeful and a little exciting. This is looking ahead that I think even our yoga teachers would sanction. It is a forward glance with an open heart and mind. It is looking to the future with curiosity rather than with a desire for a particular outcome. It is anticipation that doesn’t pull us out of the moment, but rather inspires us to savor each moment along the way. It turns out that I’m just as excited to go out and check on my little sunflower seedlings each morning as I am to (maybe … hopefully) have their bright, happy faces smiling at me as I walk to my yoga studio later this summer.
Lately, after dinner, we’ve been working on a jigsaw puzzle. In addition to fostering easy, comfortable togetherness, the practice of “puzzling” has taught me three valuable life skills. 1) It’s a good idea to begin by building the border or foundation. 2) What you’re looking for doesn’t always look like you expected it to look. 3) Sometimes you must stop focusing on the image you’re trying to create and soften your gaze to look only at the shape of the pieces you have in order to see where they fit.