Love The World Because The World Loves You

I popped into Walgreens the other day to pick up a few things and couldn’t help but to notice the 50% off Valentine’s Day candies and stuffed animals. The Easter candy going up on the other side of the aisle also served as a reminder that the holiday of love came and went. Mark and I had a really nice long over due dinner at a restaurant that we have gone to every Valentine’s Day since we moved up here to New Hampshire. Without taking away from the celebration and the appreciation that can come from Valentine’s Day, I’ve come to experience love in a much different way. It sits underneath the surface of the love I share with my family and friends, but it expands so much farther and wider than I can often imagine.

Here is how I have come to know love.

~ Love can expand infinitely when we are in the present moment and shrink drastically when we our thoughts and views are coming from either the past or the future.

~Love is a choice we make.

~Love isn’t something we earn or is something than can be taken away.

~Love is a verb and is a practice.

~Love and fear are the exact opposites.

~Love is defenseless.

~Love is generous.

Love comes from within me. It’s something I connect with. It’s not something I can find in the kindness and thoughtfulness of others or notice the lack of it with hurtful words and actions.

Over the years, I’ve taken a hard look at past relationships. Why are their words and actions still hurting me? Are they still staying those things or am I still saying them to myself? Are they still hurting me or am I revisiting my memories that hurt? Through this insight and willingness to accept me and the people in my life exactly as we are, I’ve come to see love in a much more powerful way. The only thing that gets in the way from me loving them, is some how believing that what they did or said to me meant I wasn’t lovable.

I am love. You are love. It’s not something we need to seek because it lives within us. Think of love as a source of energy. The more we use the energy, the stronger and more expansive it becomes. Our practice, whether it be on Valentine’s day or the other 364 days of the year, is connecting with that source again and again.

The Hurricane

This particular Saturday morning did not go as planned. With each of my three kids going in different directions starting at 6:45am, and my husband away for the weekend, I needed to be on my game. Instead, I overslept- waking up 15 minutes before we we're suppose to be at the football field. I felt like "Hurricane Tara" arriving at the school as I was speeding in, slamming doors, hustling over to where we were supposes to be and clearly creating a wake in my path. When I saw my son’s coach he said “It's okay, just breath". As a yoga studio owner, that felt a little embarrassing to hear from a football coach. At the same time, a friend nearby jokingly said to me, “Ya, isn't that what you tell your yoga students? You are not a great advertisement for your yoga studio right now". They were both right. I immediately felt guilty and a bit bummed at myself for that showdown. The good news is that it gave me some insight.

When we are living authentically, we have nothing to defend. Sure, we all develop expectations and judgments of people, the roles they play and how we would like them to act around us. I know that I like the grocery store bagger to know how to bag groceries. I want my kids teachers to be respectful, enthusiastic, and care about their students. I want my car mechanic to not unnecessarily charge me an arm and leg to fix my car. But the funny thing is that if I were to see any of them outside of the grocery store, school, or auto body shop, aside from breaking the law, I don’t expect much from them. And herein lies what makes teaching yoga and owning a yoga studio so amazing. We’ve created a built in mechanism to stay committed to our journey and the process we are teaching. It’s so natural that my yoga students and my community may expect me to be mindful, peaceful, relaxed and not stressed out when they see me outside of the studio. I expect the same thing for myself. They may even expect me to be a vegetarian, not drink beer or coffee, and drive a Prius with a Namaste bumper sticker on the back. And I have no problem with any of those expectations. Their expectations are their business. I may not meet any of them or I may not meet them 100% of the time. I don’t need to apologize, defend myself or beat myself up about it. My practice is waking up and catching myself when I am not living true to my word.

You don’t have to be a yoga teacher to stay committed to being yourself. Being yourself takes little to no work at all. Can you see areas or situations in your life that feel heavy or forced? Where are you applying a lot of effort to hide or try to show a made up version of yourself? Getting to the football field the other morning felt pretty stressful. I was worried I was letting people down (my son especially) but also when I take a hard look, I was afraid of looking bad. After all of that, being late the other morning did not really create any problems for anyone. But it did give me an opportunity to catch myself trying too hard, hiding behind my self-imposed stress and taking myself way to seriously.

I can now think back to that morning and smile at “Hurricane Tara”. If it were not for her, I wouldn’t feel as peaceful and connected as I do right now.

My Pact

We had an active weekend in Maine. The boys are starting their football season, Anna is getting ready to begin her first season running cross country and Mark got recruited to run Reach the Beach (a 24 hour 200 mile team run) last minute. We spent a few mornings running, doing some push-ups, squats, forearm planks and taking advantage of some down time to improve our conditioning. Some of this felt a little more challenging than I would have liked and I noticed some old but familiar self-talk. I felt frustrated and unsettled. I was wishing for a different version of my body; something better conditioned, leaner, more fit. This state of mind has crept in frequently, in different places in my life, for as long as I can remember. Struggling through a 3 mile run and remembering the days when 6 miles came so easily and effortlessly. Feeling so excited to get out the next seasons clothes and noticing that the shorts from last summer don’t fit as well as I’d like them to. Or maybe seeing a picture of a woman in a magazine wearing a super cute dress thinking, I wish I could wear that dress and look like that. When I would share my frustration of my body to my husband, he would respond with the same response I would to anyone I love. “I love you just the way you are.” It didn’t matter what he thought or if I heard the same thing from Brad Pitt. What he said, although appreciated, didn’t change the way I thought about myself. The change in my thinking had to come from me.

What made a difference for me was when I created a pact with myself. A pact rooted in gratitude, respect and trust. I didn’t realize I was doing this at the time. But somewhere along the way, I got a glimpse of insight that I am not my body, and the number on a scale or the size of my jeans does not measure my worth. Instead, I could see that my body is the home of my spirit and my uniqueness. I’ve read my share of body image self help books. Some of them would say, if you don’t like your hips, focus on your shoulders, or if you don’t like your nose, focus on your eyes. I understand the advice around emphasizing the positive, however, I think they are missing the point. Our body and even our health is a reflection of how we feel and think about ourselves. Let the focus be on what’s going on inside, not on the outside.

You have an agreement with yourself already in place. Is it based in acceptance or judgment? Is your agreement nurturing or filled with rules, deprivation and punishment? If you can see that the pact you have with yourself is any less than loving, you MUST shift it. We are here in this lifetime to shine bright and share our best version of ourselves. By embracing ourselves, our bodies and our lives just as we are in this moment, we open a space to create something new. If we continue to beat ourselves up at every turn, ironically, the change we are seeking becomes further and further out of reach because we spend all of our time and energy fighting ourselves.

Life will throw us curve balls where we can easily go from feeling on cloud 9 to being filled with doubts and uncertainties. Just like I experienced over the weekend. That’s when the pact comes in. We can say to ourselves “ I love you just the way you are” and really believe it.

Here is my Pact-

I am grateful for my beating heart and my steady breath. I promise to nurture my body with rest, movement and life giving food. I listen, I trust, I connect. I am complete, just as I am, in this moment.

What’s yours?

Pure Yoga Bliss

“I LOVE YOU”. It was almost a scream. No, just a really firm shout. “I LOVE YOU”. I LOVE you”. “I love YOU”. I heard it over and over. There I lay in shavasana, during one of the more powerful practices I’ve had in a few months. During this practice, there was a ton of breath, lot’s of space and silence, and a huge pool of sweat! It had all the makings for pure yoga bliss. But after all of my years of practicing, I had never experienced this.The voice was so clear, so firm, but loving at the same time. I just listened, not quite sure who was talking. As the voice continued, I pictured all of me. The me that I didn’t like so much and the me that I did like. I pictured my body, the body I’ve been struggling with for as long as I can remember. “I love you.” I saw my insecurities, my doubts, and my fears. "I love you”. I saw myself in a handstand. “I love you”. I saw myself teaching yoga, I saw myself with my family, and I saw myself with friends. “I love you”. The voice became softer and softer. I relaxed even more. I get it. I feel an easy and warm smile from the inside out. I am loved, fully and completely, just the way I am. I am love. Pure yoga bliss. Namaste.