MOVING FORWARD FROM WHERE YOU ARE NOW

One week you are springing out of bed to practice and the next you are dragging yourself to the mat. It is like being in an ocean where the current is deceptive, you think you are in control, in one place, and then in a snap you are downstream! That happens with practice, and as far as I can see that is just part of it.

Failure to maintain a yogic state is considered one of the 9 obstacles in Yoga and practice reveals all those obstacles inside of us. It shows us how careless we are time and again, how lethargic we are about things, how wrongly we perceive, how we make progress, somehow it gets away from us, we don’t notice, and then find ourselves downstream. When you find yourself staring at this position, what do you do? You immediately start back in without regret and that is really what it means to walk the discipline, to seek a spiritual identity; you grossly fail and yet persist…you respond positively. And it is through the positive response of moving forward that wisdom emerges. We choose to walk a worthy path through life even though the victory we gain, or the success we have or the love we express and find, may look entirely different than we imagined. I speak of staying on the high road of optimism and creativity as you transition from the ideals that you held as a youth to the realities that you must face as you age. You resist ending up like the person, songwriter Sixto Rodriguez, sang about in his song titled, ‘Jane S. Piddy’:

“It's just your yellow appetite that has you choking on the truth. You gave in, you gave out, outlived your dreams of youth.”

Instead of giving in or out, you work constantly to heal and to grow…beginning from where you find yourself each day. You work doggedly to renew your connection to the Sacred Source and then the bright future you dream of builds itself.