Moon Salutations at the Lakewood Park Solstice Steps — I haven’t felt breath course through my body like this in a long time.
Recently I’ve been finding balance by walking a couple miles after dinner. Tonight I walked a new route and inadvertently challenged my assumption that Lakewood Park (just a mile from my doorstep) wasn’t within walking distance. Take a look at all the beauty I was missing out on because I’d created a narrative that a mile is “too far away.”
During my time away, I struggled to keep up with a regular asana practice. After 2+ weeks off the mat, guilt and shame have crept into my consciousness. I feel weaker, not myself. Frankly, I’m a little afraid to get back into the studio.
This morning, I sat with myself in quiet meditation for just 10 minutes: forgiveness, forgiveness.
Maybe we could all take some time this week to forgive ourselves for whatever it is that weighs us down.
What barriers are you creating? How can you let them go?
Happy to be home (and to have heard the last half of the Cavs game on my drive into town!).
I took this picture on my last evening in Venice as we wandered through the city, checking out a few spots that inspired us. Venice is amazing because, no matter how many times you walk through a neighborhood, there always seems to be something new and beautiful to discover. Here’s a photo from an alleyway we stumbled upon, which dead-ended into a courtyard we’d never seen. The vibrancy of the colors and the simplicity of drying clothes in the open air took my breath away.
I hope my yoga practice and teaching this week will open space to explore the ways in which wandering down old, familiar alleyways with an open mind can uncover unexpected beauty and simplicity.
Feeling blessed to have taught an intimate class beside Mt. Antelao this morning. It’s amazing how full of breath your lungs can feel when you’ve got so much to be grateful for.
Can hardly wait to teach for the whole community tomorrow morning and in years to come!
Yesterday evening, I taught a very special group of yogis at The Source Yoga Studio.
For some, it was their first time on the mat. Others had been at it for years. The diversity of experience in the room helped me remember that the asana practice isn’t about looking like the people on the cover of Yoga Journal; it’s about self-compassion and radical acceptance. These themes translated to a mantra we used throughout the class: “Nothing to say, nothing to do, and absolutely nothing to fix.”
Today, fewer than 24 hours before I leave for Italy for two weeks, I find myself probing that mantra more deeply. “Nothing to fix. Nothing to fix.”
I wonder what it will feel like to have nothing to fix for two whole weeks and how, if at all, I can continue cultivating this notion in my life here at home.
What are some lessons or mantras you’ve learned while traveling? How have you shepherded them into your life back home?
Last Tuesday, a colleague asked me what I did over the long weekend, and I was embarrassed to say I couldn’t remember. This week, I dedicated my yoga practice and teaching to showing up — to not simply visiting the mat but to making something of each breath, something particular and real.
“…When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
— When Death Comes by Mary Oliver