Hello, friends!
It has been so long since I’ve written here. Life has a way of filling in any gaps that appear and sometimes laps over the edges too. But, as writers do, we write. It may be in in snippets in Instagram captions, in private in a journal, or in volumes of content for clients. Whichever way the words go, we have to get them out. It is what we we do. It is what it is.
While I’ve been writing anywhere but here, life has marched forward. My boys have grown to an almost-teenager and an almost-middle-schooler. I immersed myself in yoga over the past couple of years and became a registered yoga teacher (RYT 200) early this year. My love of running is always with me too, though I have been spending more time downward-dogging than hitting the trails.
One of the things I love about running and yoga is the emptying out that comes from each. They don’t just spend calories and sweat- they also help me let go of what is swirling in my mind. It is a similar flow with both practices. There is a slow integration to a peak and a cooling down. Then it is time to fill up. To invite the light in through all doors and windows. The “light” as I call it, for lack of a better container, is everything I want to filter my view. It is love and health and connection and creativity. It is all of those things individually and all of those things at once.
“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” ~Anais Nin
I read somewhere that we come to yoga to change our bodies but end up changing our hearts, our minds, and our lives. Because, as it turns out, the work we are doing on our mats is the work we are doing in our lives. I think this is true of any practice to which we devote our time. For me this is yoga and running and spending time in nature, but it is also the way that these things encourage me to repeatedly invite the light in. Carefully choosing what I’ll allow onboard is part of the practice.
I invite you to expand your definition of what healthy means. It is more than diet and exercise. It is even more than your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Health touches every facet of our lives and it comes to us through what we eat and drink but also what we see, hear, smell, think, and love.
Some examples:
- Drinking cool water after a sweaty practice, run, or workout
- Eating vibrant, healthy foods prepared with love
- Listening to music that invites your body to move or be still and breath
- Feeling warm sunlight or a cool breeze on your skin
- Watching a beautiful sunrise or sunset or hiking to a place with a view that takes your breath away
- Breathing fresh, clean air scented with nature (especially trees or the ocean <3)
- Sharing your favorite foods in community with people who make you lose track of time
- Exchanging stories over a cup of tea or glass of wine in a cozy restaurant, on a patio, or by a campfire
- Waking up in a tent with the sound of ravens in the trees and warming your insides with coffee that tastes so much better outside
- Spending time in a state of “flow” (thank you Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), creating music, art, or words with your hands and heart
How are you inviting the light in?
