November 24, 2023
Gratitude is the Attitude
Elizabeth Brass
Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher & Yoga Therapist (IAYT)
It's the small progressions in ourselves that often go unseen.
By not recognizing our own progress, it's easy to become frustrated.
The positive changes in our posture, in our energy, in our outlook over time are impossible to measure.
Because we can't measure the transformations that occur in us from our yoga practice, they go under valued.
It's that time of year again. The time when we Americans gather for Thanksgiving. Like many holidays, Thanksgiving has its roots in conflict and myths about its origins. Whatever your feelings about Thanksgiving, it's a time when Americans put a pause on everyday life and find another rhythm. Holidays feel like special days because of the changes in rhythm and activity, the meaning given to our traditions. Our food changes, our company changes, and our focus for a brief moment changes.
Even for an expat like me, I carve out time to celebrate (and eat!) on this holiday. The eating together is an essential component of holidays; familiar foods that hold meaning, repeating the act of cooking and eating together, year after year. Seeing what is the same and what has changed in the dishes, who prepares them, and who is present with us. These holiday rituals, like yoga, are a practice of being present and repeating that presence again and again. They mark time and bind us to time, for better and for worse.
This is part of what makes holidays joyful and painful. The first holiday with a loved one or the first holiday without them. Emotions and memories are bound up in our special days. For yoga practitioners, we practice daily a kind of stepping out of our everyday life, detaching from it, to bring our mind and body into another consciousness. This is our daily practice, to view our neighbors, our coworkers, and our fellow human beings with friendliness and compassion. Through the years, we may lose our way with our practice but we have the chance every day to renew our connection and redouble our efforts in shifting our consciousness.
Do you ever think about what you're thankful for? In your body? In your yoga practice? In your life? It's a beautiful practice in and of itself. Before or after practice, to say to ourselves 3 things that we're grateful for and observe the feelings that come up, maybe write them down, or simply embody the feelings.
In his book, Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar says that “the eyes are the window to the mind and the ears are the window to the soul.” With the ears, we connect to vibrations, in and around us. These vibrations connect directly to our essence as human beings. When holidays come around, they offer us this connection to our essence and yoga offers it to us, every day.
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