Holding Hope in a Troubled World

How do we hold ourselves steady at times when the world feels like it’s spinning out of control? When we feel powerless to make a difference to the things we see happening around us? This is the question I have been asking myself lately. Perhaps you have too.

Meditation has been my solace in the good times and the bad. When my own thoughts are too troubling for the silence I seek in meditation, then I turn to the recorded meditations of my teachers - sometimes I need that safe voice to carry me into the peace that eludes me.

Reading also helps - I find myself re-reading old favourites, since there is comfort in the familiar voice of a novel or poem you know and love. I read To Kill a Mockingbird every other year or so, because it reminds me of the basic goodness of people. The big events that reach us via the news don’t speak to the millions of small kindnesses that happen in communities all around the world, every single day. I went out for lunch today and the waiter was so warm-hearted towards my aunt with learning disabilities that he quite restored my faith in humanity. Not everyone knows how to make a person with special needs laugh, but this young man did. He probably doesn’t know what a difference he made.

Music - ah, music. From the songs I sing (loudly) in my car and kitchen to the classical music that speaks wordlessly to my troubles, music nurtures and restores me. It is also something to share, yesterday my daughter sent me I Have Considered the Lilies by Connie Converse. Such a perfect and beautiful little thing.

In times of trouble it is important that we take what comfort we can from our practice of yoga and meditation, from the sustaining beauty of these autumn days in nature, from the words, songs and art that inspire and uplift us.

We help nobody by being dragged under. What do you do to stay afloat when life feels hard? What poets, writers and musicians do you recommend? I’d love to know.

Sarah x

Dormant Shoots

Thr gifts of yoga are many and various, but for me one of thoe most important is that no matter how long we have been practsising, and not matter how old we are, whether we are healthy and full of beans, or fatigued or even unwell, there is a way to continue practising, developing and learning.

I met a lovely man recently on retreat in Samos who told me how much he regretted not sticking with yoga when he first came to it when he was younger. Now 50, he has committed to his practice with a trusted teacher. I have another student who picked up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita when she was 16 years old and was deeply moved by it, now in her fifties and dealing with an intractable autoimmune disease, she wonders why she didn’t find her way t0 yoga back then, but waited almost 40 years to begin.

It seems to me that our yoga practice begins when we first come to it, whether we committed to daily practice or not. Yoga is a seed that once planted can lie dormant for years, until the right combination of warmth, environment and attention cause it to germinate and grow.

Similarly, I meet students who used to have a dedicated yoga practice, but who fell off the yoga wagon somehow and have only just returned to it. There’s a kind of frustration in these students, they often express how they wish they had carried on, or wonder why they stopped when they know how much good yoga brings to life and limb.

It’s the same thing exactly, the yoga might be dormant within you, but it lives there still. All you have to do is shine some light on it, tend to it a little, water it regularly and it will begin to bloom within you once more.

If you have been away from regular practice and are regretting that fact, the worst thing you can do is to beat yourself up about it. Try to accept it as being your unique path in yoga, try rolling out your mat for ten minutes, moving gently, breathing more consciously. Make some room for yourself to water that seed, which grows in the sunlight of kind care, not the shadow of self-reproach.

Got to Let Go

If you want to fill your life with something new - peace say, or contentment, something creative, or a different way of interacting with the world - then you have to let go of something else.

There is a peaceful and fulfilled life waiting for you, but you must let go of something in order to be able to greet it.

If you want to stop feeling like you always take on too much, let go of being the one who always says yes.

If you want to feel more peaceful, assess where all of your energies go and stop spending it in the wrong places.

If you want time to create, say no to something or someone else.

It’s the only way and the choice is yours, but you don’t get to have both. Living a calm, creative life takes tough choices and in seeking it you will have to look at yourself with a brutally honest, but kindly eye.

You will discover that some of the things you do are to prove your worthiness to other people and to be liked. How exhausting it is not to know in your heart that you are worthy of love already, before you even get up in the morning. The work lies in believing this truth.

You will see that other things you do because you are afraid of missing out, when you know in your heart that your cup is already overflowing with good things. The work lies in learning what is enough.

Sometimes it is because you have been used to putting everybody else before yourself; someone has made you believe that this is what being good looks like. It isn’t. You are here to use your gifts, not to park them while you look after everybody else. The work is to be brave enough to be generous and self-determining, to care for others whilst staying true to your gifts and ambitions.

The little voice inside tells you this kind of recalibration is selfish. But the little voice has kept you stuck for so long now and miles away from the calm, healthy, creative person you really are.

So choose better and let go of the things that you are addicted to, but which stand the way.

x