The Calm. The Storm.

The calm, the storm, and the relationship between the two

Some of you have been thinking about Yoga for a long time now. Trust me on this, just start. Tools do not become accessible immediately. Nothing significant happens without dedicated work. As Yoga Therapists, we guide the process to be digestible, accessible and successful, but if it’s just sitting there on a paper staring at you, or worse yet, sitting in the back of your mind, it’s definitely not going to do a thing.

There are handfuls of Yogic anecdotes I have retained from direct experience with Mr. Desikachar that I keep alive in my life and teaching all of the time. One of them is that the best time to practice Yoga is when everything is relatively OK, fine, well. This guidance makes more sense as each storm blows at us.

Sometimes, for the disciplined, daily practice happens right away. Sometimes it takes months or years, maybe even decades. And sometimes, it never happens. The indispensable teachings of Yoga sound great in theory, but practicing them daily requires a new kind of effort.

When life is good, don’t ignore your practice. We can get lazy to practice, because we are coasting. Everything is alright, and it may be, temporarily, and that is why we have the energy to establish ourselves on the path of practice. Cultivating the virtues - calmness, ease, focus, stability, adaptability, resilience, truthfulness, care, faith, courage, clarity - happens in calm seas. These dormant virtues don’t come alive to shelter us from the storms, or even help us fight through them, until we regularly exercise them. And when we do, we are well situated to locate some of them when the boat starts to rock again.

Storms are not the best time to first begin practice, because our hands are full. We’re emotionally and/or physically exhausted. We are being triggered, and our flight, fight, freeze and fawn mechanisms are, by default, taking charge of our entire personalities and lives. Blinded by klesa-s and antaraya-s, we lack energy and awareness. We’re just being us, wishing things were different, but not having put in the sincere work to pull ourselves out, with Yoga-based skillsets.

With awareness and experience, we will be able to call upon the samskara-s we’ve been building when the status is quo. Experientially possible and accessible when we need it.

Our purposeful courses give you the tools to work on Yoga practice, so when you need it, Yoga practice will work on you.

Courses Starting This Week:

1x/month Online First Chapter Chanting review - Tuesdays 9-9:45am

Yoga for a Calmer Mind & Body 4 Week Course - Tuesdays 10-10:50am

Fall Semester Advanced Online Vedic Chanting - Tuesdays 4:45-5:30pm