April Newsletter

Greetings, friends,

My heart goes out to all who are feeling the weight of our current reality. I truly hope that you are well, healthy and faring these times with the knowing that they, too, are temporary. Ultimately, this is just another face of impermanence, the one universal law with which we tend to struggle the most. A law that constantly asserts itself in unexpected ways and without regard to timing or personal convenience. While part of our practice now, necessarily, must be acceptance of this law, this in no way invalidates the immensity of challenges that we’re all facing during this time, and the quality of attention and energy that we must give them.

Once again life is calling for us to grow. The invitation isn’t a new one, only the way it’s being presented happens to be in an unfamiliar form for many of us. It always feels much more difficult to answer this call when the very foundation we base our sense of security on is compromised or even dissolved. And our options are always the same. Resist or adapt. The degree to which we can adapt skillfully is critically dependent on one, initial choice. The very first choice that we make in the face of challenge. “How do I choose to perceive the changes that are appearing?” Whether it’s through embracing the gift of more space in our schedule or accepting the reality that now we have far less. Whether it’s to explore the possibility of reassessing our priorities and emphasizing things like self-care or to get locked in thought-cycles that produce fear and anxiety. This first choice becomes the very foundation of our perspective and attitude, thereby creating a domino effect that informs all of our successive choices and actions, and thus the quality of our experience as we move through it.

In regards to our current circumstances, all of us have made this choice already, and it was likely a reaction to the abruptness of an onset of dramatic and unwelcomed changes. And…we can make this choice over again. The only requirement is that we take a moment, long enough to interrupt the momentum of reactive tendencies, rooted in the habit of resistance, so that we can reframe our experience and thereby our relationship to it. It’s important for us to remember that the emotional stress we may be experiencing is not in the circumstance itself, but in how we choose, consciously or unconsciously, to meet it.

I believe that now is not the time to toss our practice aside, but instead to let it fully hold us. I invite you to join me in making time each week to cultivate inner stability and strength through the time-tested teachings of Yoga.