Yoga is consuming quite a bit of my life these days. I have embarked on another yoga teacher training program, very much in an effort to allow yoga to consume quite a bit of my life. It seems that Yoga as a path blends quite nicely with how I think about life, love, and my clients. So many people who do not spend their time and energy delving into the world of yoga think of it as an exercise of twisting your body into lots of fun and unobtainable postures. When indeed, it is truly so much more than that. The postures are important, and a useful tool, but in no way are they an end in themselves. The literal translation of the Sanskrit word, “Yoga” is union. It refers to the union of our small self with Ultimate Reality, the Oneness of all things. In practicing yoga, I am offering myself an opportunity to align myself well, not only in good bodily alignment, but also in my Life and in the practice of Love. Yoga understands that there is no real separation between our self and the rest of the Universe. If we can live and breathe this in our lives, I am quite certain that there would be fewer conflicts in the world, both on a personal level, and on a global level. I offer here a paragraph from a correspondence I recently sent to a yogi friend.

Choosing a yogic path means challenging some of our most primal fears.
I hope it means that we take a look at some of the masks that we put on, and dare to
question them.
I hope it means that we fight for Love, and don’t get caught in the confused place of our desires.
I hope it means that when we say Namaste*, we try to live Namaste.
I hope it means that we do our very best to Love ourselves with honesty and integrity, so that we can then be the Love that we want to be for more than just ourselves. Because we understand that there is really no separation between ourselves and anyone else.
When we reject someone, we reject our self. When we reject our self, we reject Love. It is a painful place from which to be conducting Life.


*Namaste: The light within me sees and honors the light within you. ie: From my humble self, I can see and honor you. Despite our differences, we are essentially the same.

I share this because of the universality of the struggle I see people having in love and relationships. We so easily reject in a confused effort to protect ourselves from whatever it is that we are afraid of. Yet, in our rejections we separate ourselves from the world and create isolation, loneliness, misunderstandings, and quite a few other problems for ourselves.
Donna