Our New Reopening

Freshly Repainted lobby

My internal questions that I have asked of my self each day on this journey are:

    “Is it kind?”

    “Is it true?”

    “Is it the right time?"

The journey these last few months has offered me an profound opportunity to practice letting go. And yet, my dedication to our community is only stronger.

It is so true that no one can be teaching unless one is learning and practicing—just like a candle that cannot light another candle unless it is burning itself. I am aware that there are difficult concerns and uncertainties as we navigate these coming months.

We need our practice more than ever not only for the physical stamina of a healthy immune system but for our deeper emotional and mental challenges that are being presented through loss everyday. If we hold on too tightly to the past, we get stuck in the mind chatter of doubt and confusion as fear will presents itself in various emotional reactions. And if we move too quickly into something new, we miss the opportunity for deeper reflection.

The gateway for healthy new patterns needs to be fully established for stable foundations. We must remain steadfast and continue to focus on our blessings of gratitude for our community. We need to extend a continuous link of connection through the hearts.

I am offering my commitment that Yoga Among Friends will be a place to grow and nourish the deeper connections to our soul. I offer you a safe place to fall apart and to feel a deeper knowing with your inner light. Let’s continue to shine the way for the generations behind us who are needing to see the footpath home.

It’s been over five months since students have walked into our sacred space. We have been so blessed to keep our doors open with the incredible dedication of our community. Our heartfelt appreciation for all of our students who have continue to commit to their yoga practice by signing into our zoom classes and purchasing our Summer Special.

We hope that you have found comfort and a stable sense of wellbeing by being able to stay connected. It is our full intention to make sure our community is sustained, and we can open safety and with respect for all.

All of my gratitude goes to the outpouring of dedication that our teachers and staff have shared to move us forward into this new beginning. Yes, we are going to cautiously open the studio to students, as well as maintain our zoom streaming, starting on Tuesday, September 8.

We will be starting our new monthly subscriptions including 5, 9 and unlimited classes as well as offer single classes and gift certificates. We hope that everyone can appreciate the breakdown of our pricing to honor the reduced in class participation with the added effort of keeping our studio up to code with cleaning.

This fall season, in addition to reopening, I will be personally creating more opportunity to study the philosophy of yoga and to study the Yoga Sutras. We will be offering more meditation classes on demand. With these new offerings, hopefully we can maintain a presence in your life as a lifeline for stability. 

Blessings,

LJ

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A few photos of our newly repainted studio!

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Dancing with the Heart

“When striving for perfection, we think we have to get somewhere. When moving into fullness, we know we have to open our hearts to where we are.”

MARK NEPO

I’m always sharing with my students and reminding myself that perfection is a self loathing habit of our learned minds. We are taught early on to keep striving towards this invisible identity of perfection. And we feed our little self the belief that what we are is not good enough.

The longing continues to haunt us as a way to punish and beat ourselves on a daily basis. Exhaustion follows because we can never reach this impossible ideal.

Maybe for a moment in frozen time, we can pretend to be that perfect person. Ah, the pain of emptiness when we fall from this harsh judgement and realize that nothing is permanent, especially the illusion of perfection. 

To accept ourselves right where we are in all of our imperfections and with all our bruises of living life, the actual feeling of being content with ourselves is the profound moment of forgiveness.

I learned wrong! Life is not this constant need to get outside myself. My joy and happiness is not conditional on the outer but arises when I fall in love with my true self, this imperfect person living a full and joyous life with what I have and where I am—right here NOW. 

This is not an easy practice when my life is filled with obstacles, and I’m tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated with the world I’m seeing with my outer eyes. I need to go inward, to move my mind into the state of yoga and start to experience that I have a choice where to focus my thoughts. I shift from doing to being, focus on the movement of my longer exhales, and feel the physical grip of tension relax into a feeling of release. I let go of that inner need to get life; and instead, I feel my life.

In that moment, I touch the fullness of my life is pure blessing for all of myself, messy, chaotic, confused, and uncertain. I need the constant reminder to be kinder and gentler with myself, to not just sit in my pain, but to make a daily effort to move in another direction.

We all want to be more compassionate, but it must start with ourselves. It’s not very compassionate to beat on myself or resist change either. My daily practice is to quiet that inner task master, so that my reactive mind isn’t just going into its habit of self loathing and seeing life as a thing to conquer and get. In the midst of my confusion, it’s an opportunity to embrace what is being presented and to allow it to move through me.

Yes, sadness is being presented, worry is being presented, and yet with the same awareness, sweetness is being presented, ease is being presented, and love is being presented. To hold the opposites of all of it is the grace of being present to the fullness. It’s being alive to the awe and mystery being presented. It’s living fully in the abundance of all of me. Self acceptance and self forgiveness become my gateway into my true self.

When my mother passed, I found all of my report cards, even those from nursery school! Yes, my sweet record keeper held my life even in her death.

I found one remarkable story about myself that explains so much of my true nature. I must have been three at the time and in the report, the teacher made observations on my behavior. She wrote that I would refuse to play musical chairs since I didn’t want to push anyone off a chair.

I can totally remember this as even today my heart rate goes up just thinking of rushing to get that chair to stay in the game. Instead  when the music went on, I would dance around the room and remain still when the music stopped. I can fully recall the love of just being able to dance and not fight for a chair.

I laughed and cried reading this since it explains everything about my soul. For me, dancing as always been the answer to all my frustrations and stresses. Asana is my dance. But sometimes in moments of deep despair,  I turn the music up and wildly dance around my house. Dancing calms me and allows my mind to release the hold of a belief that there’s a lion behind me ready to eat me.

Yes, the sympathic nervous keeps the adrenal rushing even though intellectually, I know there is NO LION. My body is wired to fight and survive for my existence. I am taught that somehow I must fight or run to get away from the terrible fate of being eaten.

Daily, with this false belief, I am feeding the memory of learned habit and existing on false energy. And as children, we learned that if we don’t get that chair, we lose the game. Is purpose of the game of life to win at all costs?  Who said that I had to beat someone to their chair to validate my existence? Childhood games are competitive becoming the game of business, politics, and the game of striving.   

All of us learned that life is out there to get and be seen. When we identify with our outer shell (or as I call the body—the “container”) and when we attach our worth to the job, the role, or our stuff, we call this AVIDYA, the root of all our suffering.   

I must have decided early on to give my chair to another and dance to my own drummer. Life is always presenting opportunity to live fully, to share our abundance, and to thrive in our joyous truth. We just have to practice shifting that habit of believing the lie, that perfection would be obtained by getting that chair.

When one actually feels being ENOUGH, one has more to give. In the teachings of yoga, it is not enough to survive, we must honor the thriving of life.

Yes, living is filled with potholes and challenges, and I’m aware of the obstacles. But by practicing inner kindness and letting go of our inner judgement, we can offer a chair to others and still feel safe and steady in this very fast and furious world. 

I invite all of us to dance more, laugh more and be enough as imperfect people living perfect lives!

Many blessings,

Laura Jane

"Zooming" in the Blessed Space of Your Own Home

Laura Jane Mellencamp

I am so humbled by the constant reminder that I am not in control of anything. I can only set an intention, do my best, and leave the rest. I could never imagine when we closed our doors in March that we would still be in such a state of confusion come July.

After sitting in the uncertainty, I am holding the future loosely. I feel at this time, it would be too hasty to open our doors and bring students into our space with so many conflicting messages around this variable virus. I have to respect my teachers and the students. To return too soon would not be a healthy decision considering all the unknowns.

I feel that all the safety concerns being presented are only going to agitate the minds; wearing a mask, keeping social distancing, and having to practice without the air conditioner is not offering our community a joyous place to practice. I must honor the first principle of yoga, Ahimsa (non-harming), is my first intention.

Therefore, I am postponing the reopening of the studio until we have better protocols for teaching without causing emotional stress. We are remaining to be steadfast in our commitment to share and teachings via zoom and to enhance the community with nurturing love as we ride the wave of this airborne virus.

Who would imagine six months ago that my life work of touch, offering hugs as a healing modality, would be eliminated. Breath is all there is for life. As teachers of yoga, our commitment has been to teach the value of exhaling. Now we learn this is how the virus thrives.  

My heart is sadden but my spirit remains more confident than ever. We will return to the studio slowly and yet for today, YAF will remain a home base for all of us to stay healthy and vibrant and positive moving forward in the comfort of our homes. Community is the most important healing foundation and so please continue to practice and bring your soul to the mat.

We are collectively breathing for the world, and your intention to spread the kindness of respect, patience, forgiveness, and love is our mission statement now. Let go of harming judgements, fearful projections and angry resistance.

Life is moving us forward. Transformational creativity is happening but we must be still enough to listen. “Zooming” in the blessed space of your own home and trust that our teachers are holding all of you in a safe and caring way.

We maintain our practice to experience our collective consciousness of beauty, wonder and grace. Let us remember our true nature and extend this intrinsic harmony into the world.

We can breathe together and as one vibrational sound—be the love! This might sound “Kumbayah”, and too simple for the complex nature of our times, but the strength of intention is not from a lack mind but from a full and grateful heart.  

In light and love,

Laura Jane