When Life is the Way

My response to a question posed on Tumblr…

Hi, just started following you. I used to do yoga frequently but I allowed life to get in the way.. how can I get started again?

i’ve been sitting with this question for a bit…seems like it would be easy enough to suggest ways to connect with local yoga classes or to set aside time each day to meet yourself on your mat.  in very practical terms, the best advice i’ve seen on how to fit an on the mat practice of yoga asana into a busy day is to look at how much time you want to spend on the mat and then look at your day to see what you could let go of that no longer serves you in order to free up that amount of time. but i have a feeling your message is asking something more.

so, i read your words again and thought about allowing “life to get in the way.”  what if life is your yoga practice?  the series of postures that we think of as yoga is just one limb of our practice; it is how we come to those postures, how we move through them that makes time on the mat yoga rather than stretching exercises.

when i consider that every moment is a kind of posture – washing the dishes, answering this question, filling the grocery cart, sharing dinner, hugging, struggling with emotional reactions, falling asleep, paying bills…then i ask myself, how can i embody Love, mindfulness, grace, compassion, humility, gratitude, benevolent curiosity, a willingness to learn in this moment?  if i accept the invitation to make every posture a prayer, what does that look like as i move through the day?

i don’t know what your spiritual perspective is, but i connect with a sense of sacred energy existing in all things, with an openness to see that Love is our true nature.  i see our practice as a remembering of who we are rather than as a self improvement program.

in practicing every day yoga, this prayer is meaningful to me as a call to awareness and intention:

divine spirit of Love
may all my speech and idle talk be mantra
may all actions of my hands be mudra
may all eating and drinking be as offering oblations unto thee
may all lying down be prostrations before thee
may all pleasures be as dedicating my entire self unto thee
may everything i do be taken as thy worship

i’m always learning and that leaves a lot of space for forgiveness, practicing self compassion when my actions are not in harmony with devotion to a practice of mindfulness and truth.  yet, as patanjali’s yoga sutras tell us, the practice of yoga begins NOW.  now is every moment, so it is never too late to get started again and again and again.  perhaps your yoga practice is as close to you as your own breath in this moment.

namaste.

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