Pursuing the practice of yoga has given me many things, and one of these things has been a broken heart.
Let me explain.
Yoga is about cultivating awareness of ALL things, without discrimination. So when we open ourselves to the ways of the world, we experience both the joy and the sorrow. We see the generosity and the greed; both intelligence and idiocy; the caring and the apathy.
Yoga means resolving to bear witness to the way we both help, and harm, eachother. In the easy times, we can just drink it all in and bask in the glow! In the hard times, it requires greater determination: how do we keep showing up? How do we keep our hearts from breaking?
If we truly engage in this complicated and messy world, our hearts will break. It is inevitable. We must let them break. We have to let the world in.
So yoga didn’t break my heart, per se – it helped me realize it was already broken.
Before you start sending me referrals to therapists, hold on: it gets better.
Once we realize the state of things, only then can we do something about it. Yoga gives us the tools to mend our hearts. It gives us the chance to practise starting again, with compassion and curiosity. Every breath can be a fresh moment, a fresh start. It is a practice of forgiveness.
If we think others are incorrigible, how does that affect the way we treat ourselves?
Let’s not give up on ourselves. Let’s take care of our broken hearts, together.
Adrienne