We may have another snow forecast on the way, but I can feel spring beginning to rustle under the surface. Growing up in Louisiana there were two seasons, regular hot and humid and hurricane season. I’ve lived in Philadelphia now for over 25 years and I truly love watching how we have to adapt and adjust to each new season. It’s especially fascinating to see how we manage when we get a winter with the intensity of this one. It certainly has rattled our expectations.
Expectations in yoga, and in life, can trip us up. Expecting a certain kind of winter was where we went wrong. In the first few years of my yoga practice, I kept expecting each class I’d get “better.” Then I realized I was missing the point.
I have an amazing imagination and often I was so busy imagining how much better it could be and then getting frustrated when life, and my yoga practice, did not match exactly what I had imagined. And I’d missed what was happening in that moment. So I’d set off imagining again. The whole cycle would repeat over and over again. It was exhausting. There had to be a better way.
I finally got it. Be here now. That simple phrase, had been repeated over and over by my teachers. Oh, I guess they meant be here now, I mean really BE HERE NOW.
So that meant coming into warrior pose as a whole new experience EVERY time. As if I’d never done it before. Hmmm…with no past baggage attached. With no future expectations?
What if every experience in life could be like that? Coming to the people and relationships and experiences of life as if for the first time. Not rushing toward what’s next or holding on to what’s already been. That might really change things and make the journey a little easier to travel.
We’re all leaning in with anticipation for spring, and it is going to burst forward very soon. But let’s be here now and enjoy the view. One more snow storm? Ah, we can handle it. Maybe we’ll even find some beauty and grace in what this one has to offer. Keep your shovels handy.
Be well…it’s a state of mind.
Alice Dommert
deliver me wellness
alice@delivermewellness.com
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