Less stress, even just a bit…
Less holding on, less anxiety and fear, even just a little bit less can be a lot.
So much less in fact that you feel better.
Everything can shift some, even around the smallest of changes.
Notice this when you practice your meditation and yoga.
In this busy world, just showing up to practice can be a lot.
Even just a little bit of practice can help you feel a whole lot better, or mo’ fine!
Yoga doesn’t necessarily make you feel totally or completely fine, but it can certainly help you feel mo’ fine.
Practice more regularly, and you might just find yourself feeling more fine more of the time!
Through our yoga and meditation, in our pursuit of doing less harm, we can attempt to be kind where there was undo harshness.
The company of self-compassion can be challenging given our ego’s “infallibility” and perfectionism, but it can grow in our inner garden if tended to with loving kindness.
Let this be our spring bounty. With great love and respect, may we grow our inner kindness and compassion and forgiveness with our garden tools in hand, our trusty yoga and meditation practices.
We all want to have good influences in our lives.
The practices nurture our relationship with the best of influences, the Prana Shakti.
It’s always good to hang with a good influence!
Given Covid and all we’ve done over the last two year to adjust our lives to it, we are different and so is the world around us.
Yoga and meditation can help us slip out of the skin that no longer suits us and our new situations, and grow into the one that does.
That’s the skinny!
Just as our yoga mat accepts us as we are no matter what we are thinking or feeling, so too does the inner smile.
Unconditionally.
Now that’s something to smile at!
The inner smile is like the sunrise of our hearts and mind. It can renew and refresh our spirit for the new day ahead.
Like a mother’s lap can offer comfort and relief when afraid, sad, hurt, or angry, the inner smile can do the same, not solving problems, but helping re-center us to be able to move forward.
This tumultuous world–with a pandemic, the assault on the Ukraine, and with social, racial, and gender inequalities–gives us beyond ample opportunities to practice the inner smile, to move forward with more ease and love.
The slight inner smile glowing with loving kindness and compassion can bring greater ease to our being and help calm the mind.
This inner smile is all-accepting and is a gift to any situation. Even brought to our inner struggles, it can bring greater ease and give room for letting go.
Practice bringing this inner smile to your yoga and meditation, and see if you don’t notice its benefits.
Practice the inner smile in your daily life situations, and see if you don’t notice its effects.
Let yourself be graced by the inner smile.
You know in yoga, they’re often telling you to let go.
However, you can’t make yourself let go. You can make the effort to show up for practice, but, like you can’t make meditation happen, you can’t make yourself let go. However, you can predispose yourself to it by making the effort to practice.
Letting go just happens.
You might not even feel it happening when it does.
The only problem for me is sometimes I can’t remember what it is I let go of because I let go of it and don’t have it anymore!
Let go!
The Every Day Yogi 