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It Takes Practice

Here’s a thought I’d like to share…

In the practice of mindfulness in the context of any lifestyle is one of renunciation. Every moment of mindfulness renounces the reflexive, self-protecting response of the mind in favor of clear and balanced understanding. In the light of the wisdom that comes from balanced understanding, attachment to having things be other than what they are falls away. –Sylvia Boorstein

This Saturday marks 10 years of Saturday Morning Yoga!! Come celebrate with me and get your Breathe Stone.

Ten years ago, I was going through Chemotherapy for stage 3-C colon cancer. I started the Saturday Morning Yoga class during my 4th month of chemo. Yoga helped me feel grounded and centered. It offered me the space to focus on befriending my body in a way that chemo did not. In yoga, I could access a sense of healing and well-being. My yoga practice was a huge component of what pulled me through my cancer treatment, and I was (and still am) committed to sharing that awareness and energy with the people in my life.


Starting the Saturday Morning Yoga class was, for me, an affirmation of healing. It was my way of reminding myself that it matters that we each honor the paths we are given (like it or not) and that we live that path fully, without hiding or becoming resentful (sometimes that was much harder than other times).


Saturday Morning Yoga was (and continues to be) about bringing people together, about hope, about commitment to practice, about doing the work that is ours to do, and about trusting the process.

Teaching, both past and present, is one of the ways I hold my own feet to the fire – it keeps me accountable to the practices that support and enrich my journey. Life gets busy. We all have so much going on. It’s easy to let “stuff” get in the way of the things that truly nurture us. We forget to really value our relationships, our spiritual practices, our nutrition, our rest. We put ourselves and our self-care on the back burner in an attempt to get everything done. I am certainly guilty of this. Returning to the mat (and for each person, “the mat” may mean any number of spiritual/centering practices) helps me recommit to what’s truly and deeply important.


Yoga isn’t just a physical practice. It’s about so much more than the poses.  The poses are what we do in yoga; yoga is how we’re being in the poses. Yoga is about the connection, the union of mind, body, and spirit.  Yoga is about learning to make skillful choices for oneself – on the mat and in the world. It’s about showing up, stopping the reactivity, choosing compassion – over and over again!


Oh, how I need these lessons, these reminders. For me, it takes practice, practice and more practice. Maybe that’s why I’m still teaching after all these years!?


A deep bow of gratitude, Namaste, Augusta

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