Practicing Chaos

Leaning into the Opportunity for Change

Every time we come to the practice, there is an opportunity to learn more about ourselves. If you are just beginning yoga, you are learning different poses and their names, where to put your mat, how to use props, and how to breathe. Those things don’t seem monumental, but your thought process and your attitude while you learn and change is where the growth happens. As a beginner, it can be intimidating to walk into a packed class and realize that the only spot left is right up front. This is an opportunity to grow, to drop attachments and worries about not looking good or being the “best”. Eventually all these little things add up and suddenly, you become a slightly more confident person. Now that you’ve been practicing a while, you don’t care where you end up in the room because you’re just happy to be there. You don’t care if you don’t know what you’re doing in front of a bunch of people, because you know that eventually you will know, and you realize that they’re all going through some version of what you went through. Then the empathy and human-ness begins to build as you see it blossom around you, becoming so much more aware of the world and your place in it, your effect on it. Before we realize, we are different people. Still ourselves, but clearer more heightened versions.

How did that happen? It wasn’t how good you can do the yoga poses, although your body may benefit greatly from it. It wasn’t how many spiritual books you read, although your knowledge may expand greatly from it. It wasn’t your teacher, they brought you to the water, but they can’t make you drink. It wasn’t the color of your yoga mat or the wellness retreat you went on. The change happened in the practice of it all. The change happened when you decided to practice your yoga poses instead of go out for drinks. The change happened when you chose to take that spiritual book to heart and started meditating. The change happened when you chose to spend your hard-earned money on a retreat with like-minded individuals who are also practicing wellness, instead of another trip to Cabo. The change happens in the choices. The changes happens from us. The change happens when we practice making change. Whether or not it’s a yoga practice, find something worth committing to, and let it change you. Let it shake you up, let it teach you how strong you really are. Because once you realize what you can do, what you have done, you realize that anything you want is possible. You just have to decide to choose it and really mean it, the rest will work itself out, and from my experience, always for the better. So, if it feels like chaos and confusion at first, you know it’s really an opportunity, for change. Try not to play it too safe, choose the chaos.

Love, Kari