Let your heaviness be what grounds you.
There was a moment during yoga teacher training when I thought to myself, “how can I be a yoga teacher while sad?” I felt fear about teaching others as I still have some negative patterns of my own. Then I remembered—this is a practice.
Maintaining a fearless optimism in the face of pain, suffering, trauma and violence may seem impossible. How does one acknowledge the suffering of the world, yet not become a product and extension of that suffering? Maintaining a sense of peace and wellbeing through the tumultuous and chaotic occurrences of our world has taken me some time to accomplish.
This weekend, my brother, his old friend, and I, got to talking about Ohio. About how sometimes it’s a wonderful place. My brother and I grew up near Cleveland, but neither of us spends much time at home anymore. He was recently living in Southeast Asia, and now, upon coming home, he’s moved out to the Pacific Northwest. He said he just couldn’t stand the winters, the seemingly endless season of 5pm sunsets and ice-crusted mornings. For my part, I didn’t mind the cold. I just wished Ohio weren’t so flat. I longed for mountains.