Yesterday I found myself sulking, then at the airport before flying home from Florida to Ohio, uncontrollably crying. I’m not sure it was classified as ugly crying, but nonetheless, I made a spectacle of myself. Instead of the people around me looking at me as if I was some weirdo, their eyes instead seemed to hold compassion for me, which made me cry even more. No matter how much I told myself to get my shit together, I was compelled to sob.
Eventually I regained some composure, but I still allowed myself to FEEL, without judgment, without labeling what I was feeling as right or wrong. And, since I was about to spend 2 hours on an airplane, it was a good time to just sit and be with what I was feeling.
At some point though, we must get up and get back to work, and the work begins with ourselves. During these difficult times of uncertainty and hysteria, I find myself sorting through my toolbox to find the tools I so desperately need. These are the tools I’ve discovered through yoga and the very tools I’ve shared with my students in my teachings.
The chaos that we have worked through on our yoga mats has taught us valuable tools to use off our mats, tools to help us work through confusion, conflict, distraction and feeling unsettled or fearful.
First. We learn to Breathe, to Focus, and tap into and connect with our powerful Center. There is strength in our breath. Our focus gives us direction. And our center is the observer of self, our truth, where we respond to what’s happening with resolve, not reacting with fear, panic or drama.
When I started digging through my toolbox, I found Humor and Joy. I’m not making light of someone else’s crisis but finding lightness in my own. It is much easier to criticize, find fault and feed panic and despair, but that isn’t me. It’s humor and joy that help sustain me and help me overcome life’s difficulties and challenges. I find that making someone smile or chuckle feeds my appetite for connection, and when I’m feeling connected, I obviously don’t feel alone. When I witness my zest and enthusiasm for living contagiously reaching those around me, it fuels me with more vitality and more desire to live fully, and joyfully, with intention.
In our toolboxes, another excellent tool is Gratitude. There is also Acceptance and Patience, the tools that often find their way to the bottom of my toolbox. I can assure you that the more we resist our current circumstances, using our energy to refute it instead of surrendering to it, we use up the needed reserves to be still and know, to drop what we think we know and to radically accept what is, receiving it, liking it or not, but moving forward from a place of acceptance and trust rather than resistance, skepticism or fear.
One thing I know for sure is that our challenges are opportunities for growth, and during this time, maybe even a spiritual awakening. I have a strong sense of knowing that everything will be okay, that all things work for the greater good and each of us are all just merely a small part of something much, much bigger than ourselves.
I encourage you to practice. To get on your yoga mat, to breathe, to focus, to re-center. Discover those tools and use them.
We have been so flooded with information about this virus and the hysteria around it, and we are like sponges soaking it all up. We are soaking up fear, anxiety, tension and so much more. And since what we focus on expands, we have to be careful not to stay saturated with those things. Use your yoga practice, like squeezing the sponge, to release those things that weigh you down.
With love, gratitude, joy and praying for all of my friends to remain in good health, Namaste.