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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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.
In uncomfortable situations we often immediately weather a powerful sense of aversion. “I don’t want this!” “This isn’t what I planned!” “This isn’t fair!” Because we’ve been practicing, however, we know that this surge of emotion (often quite justified) will pass if we pause and take a few breaths. Once we settle down and accept that what is happening is, indeed, happening, we free ourselves to get creative. We set ourselves up to do things we never thought we would do, or never even dreamed we’d be able to do. We may even find ourselves feeling grateful for the chance to stretch and grow.
There is a pivotal moment whenever you’re learning to do something when you find yourself relying on the teacher that matters the most – YOU. Sure, weeks, months and even years of study with the best teachers you can find is a tremendous asset. But in the end, what you’re learning from them is their perspectives and what works for them. Real wisdom comes from doing, from your own experience. While your teachers have walked a similar path, no one else has walked YOUR path. No one else has your own unique blend of gifts, talents and ideas. No one else has been shaped by life experiences exactly as you have been. You are, in the end, the best teacher for you.
Resilience is a powerful quality in a crisis. Here are 5 science-backed ways to practice resilience on your yoga mat so you feel more resilient in life. 1) Change the narrative. 2) Face your fears. 3) Practice self-compassion. 4) Meditate. 5) Cultivate forgiveness.
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” While making mistakes may not be your favorite thing to do, you can learn from every one of them. And the satisfaction you feel when you figure it (whatever it is) out at last is all the sweeter and more lasting because of the mistakes you make along the way.