In Yoga As in Life

Here’s a thought I’d like to share…

In yoga, as in life. ~Augusta Kantra

It’s been eight years now since I began teaching the Saturday Morning Yoga class. I was in my final month of chemotherapy and it just felt like something I was being called to do. My doctor advised against it, saying I needed to conserve my strength to finish the treatment. My husband, David, saw how yoga actually gave me strength, how it made me feel stronger, how, even when I could do little else, I could do yoga and feel better — I could feel more whole. Thus, he was my biggest supporter in this endeavor. He said, “If you want to start up a new yoga class, then start up a new class. I can’t imagine chemo or cancer either one getting in your way — I’m sure not going to!” And so, although starting a class at that point in my treatment sounded a bit odd, I knew that yoga was healing for me, and I wanted to share the practice with others.

I still do.

Since that time, I’ve come to learn more and more about the ways that the practice of yoga heals not only the body but the mind and spirit as well.

I’ve come to understand the quiet kind of listening that is required to hear the stirrings of the heart.

I recognize the privilege it is to have a practice for making skillful choices.

But what I’ve really learned is that yoga is not what you do, but how you are being while you do whatever it is you’re doing. …In yoga, as in life.

So many people would benefit from this practice but feel that they are too old, too stiff, too inexperienced, too self-conscious, too “you name it.” So, they put it off.

What they don’t know, it that yoga is not just a practice done on the mat. Yoga is a way to live off the mat.

What we learn by listening to our bodies while on the mat is that our hearts speak in soft whispers while we’re off the mat. What we learn by coming into physical alignment on the mat is how to come into spiritual alignment off the mat. …In yoga, as in life.

People feel drawn to/pulled by things all the time, but it’s easy to not heed that pull. When I was going through chemo, if something made me feel better in any way, it pulled pretty strongly. Yoga pulled!

Perhaps it was the slowing down, an inherent part of going through chemo, that helped me hear that calling and feel that pull. And for that, I am eternally grateful. Because, in listening to that pull, I began something that feeds my soul, and has changed my life — and just maybe, the lives of others as well.

Whatever you need to do to feel the pull of your heartstrings, whatever you need to do to get quiet enough to heart the whisperings of your heart — do it. Don’t put it off. Don’t wait.

It can change your life.

And your changing changes everything… in yoga, as in life.

Wishing you the will and the way to heed your heart’s calling,

Namasté Augusta