Guarantees
September 3, 2021
I’m finding more and more that it seems that we literally can’t lean into any true certainties. As I sit here on this pleasantly warm end of summer/beginning of fall, I’m managing some tough emotions around having to cancel and reschedule the fall retreat that I do with my colleague and friend, Meggie (for our 2nd year in a row due to Covid), and that earlier today I heard the news of another yoga collegue who was involved in an accident that left her in the ICU. She was on a trip that was meant to celebrate her 60th birthday. One minute she was fine and enjoying life and friends and the next moment BOOM literally she got knocked out and may have some very serious negative impacts from this experience that could change the trajectory of her life. No one knows, right?! And, we all know that but more and more I’m experiencing a feeling of the fragility of life - and maybe it’s my age - that at any moment, things can change and change fast.
What do I know about how to manage through times like this? About as much as you. Really. I may have a few extra tools as a yoga teacher and trainer that helps me stay grounded but it’s not easy. It takes a lot of strength to widen my perspective and know that just as much as life seems to take away it always provides. We live in aBOTH AND world - not one of lack and not one of abundance. Life is far more nuanced than that.
How do we open our lens to take in more of the life-affirming experiences? For me, it’s my daily non-negotiable routine of centering into something deep inside that is linked to something WAY bigger - Consciousness, Source Energy, the Divine, or whatever you may name it. It’s that reminder that as we breath, we are being breathed by life itself; as we feel and perceive we are also being “felt” and perceived by others. Anything that can help you remember that you are not alone, I call good and necessary. Being in nature certainly gets me to this same place that there is a bigger meaning that holds all of us and even though there are no guarantees being in nature gives you a bigger perspective. I suppose that it’s also all about getting used to living in this new way of thinking/paradigm. it’s a practice just like life.
