A more receptive space of being….

Gratitude, yes. AND, attempting to enter that more receptive space of being.

As a professional do-er, one of the greatest gifts the practice of yoga has offered me is to simply BE.

To be able to shift out of go, do, get-stuff-done, think-stuff-through, responsibility-mode and into sensory, curiosity, willingness, allowance, feeling.

Admittedly, this isn’t always easy.

Yet, there is a deep yearning for this space. We have a deep need to simply BE. To slow, to feel, listen… inward.

Accessing this space of BE-ing can be done in so many ways. In Yoga, we can sit still or meditate, speed our breath up or slow or breath down or hold our breath in or hold our breath out, rest over bolsters/blocks/pillows completely awake and aware, chanting So-Hum, OM or OM Gum Ganapataye Namaha, or connecting with our physical body.

Gratitude is one of the many things that pours into this space, and not the Pollyanna kind….but a deep, heartfelt, authentic gratefulness without words. Since so many other feelings can arrive as well, Yoga practices offer a strengthening of our being: to be strong enough to be able to sit with what is there in this space of not doing.

Sleeplessness, anxiety, stress, anger, (really the full range of our feelings), can be a (subtle-and sometimes not always so subtle) reminder that we need more spaces like this in our lives. To do nothing in a traditional sense. To attempt to arrive in a space of willingness to feel. To allow the emotions that we maybe don’t prefer and haven’t allowed as much to surface alongside others.

It can have a feeling like my heart just might burst to be with this full range. Happy and sad. Easy and hard. Birth and death. Day and night. What we expected and what we didn’t. Complicated and simple. And yet, this is the space of deep life affirming okay-ness, love, joy, gratitude and living that I hope to find when I practice, teach and every single day in my life.

Wishing this kind of gratitude for us all this holiday season,

K