My fear is that our society has lessened the true impact of what yoga is and can do for each and every human because of the cute clothes, the trendy equipment, and the social connection that is associated with “going to yoga”. Don’t get me wrong; none of those things are bad, but if all they do is make you see yoga as a PRODUCT, then they have definitely misrepresented what yoga truly is.
I say that because when I offer YOGA as one of the offerings of the Path to Santosha, I am talking about your LIFE, not what you “do” in your spare time. I know that sounds big, and maybe even a bit odd, but yoga is not something we DO; it’s who we are.
Yoga is the breath going in and out of my body 20,000+ of times each day.
Yoga is the awareness I have of WHO I AM and what my purpose is.
Yoga is the pathway I use to calm myself internally as something awful is happening externally around me.
Yoga is how I treat the person handing me my to-go order at the curbside pickup.
Yoga is how I talk to myself about my physical body and my mental capacity.
Yoga is how I sit and relish each and every present moment that I have been blessed to experience.
Sometimes all that “yoga” happens in my car as I listen to music that invigorates my soul. Sometimes it happens when I am pulling weeds in my flower bed with the warm sun on my back. A whole lot of the time it happens when I am on my Manduka mat at 6am or 8pm. And an even more WHOLE lot of the time it happens when I am on my meditation cushion, pausing and being still.
THAT is the kind of “yoga” I want to bring to your life. There are 8 limbs of yoga that have existed for thousands of year and only one of those involves physical practice. If you’d like to know more about what all those other limbs are all about, I am ready to share.
There is honestly a selfish element in there as well because the more of you that find this path and start to exhale positive, affirming energy, the better it will create for my two precious grandkids. I need them to be surrounded by yogi-beings as much as possible!