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FEATURED
Change
I am pleased to announce that, as of May 1, I will be opening a new studio! The Center for Yoga has been my home for 12 years and it's been a wonderful and fruitful experience. It is with gratefulness that I depart, but also with much anticipation that I move into this next stage of creating a new place - a Good Space – for my students to learn and grow.
While my current schedule of classes will be exactly the same, I plan to offer more therapeutic classes, as well as expanded yoga therapy hours. I'll also be adding a couple of additional teachers who will offer workshops and classes. The new studio (still called Good Space Yoga) is a beautiful 650 square foot space with maple floors and windows on the entire west and north sides of the room. It will be in the same building as Full Spectrum Family Medicine. I am looking forward to being in connection with such a respected holistic medical practice in town. For those interested in expanding their sangha and continuing to deepen their meditation practice, FSFM provides an excellent opportunity every Sunday with chanting and meditation practice.
So, with all these changes, let's discuss the subject of change. First, I want to thank my students and dedicate this change to them because none of this could be possible without you all! Each of us has a different relationship with change - some of us love it, crave it, some of us dread it, avoid it, and all the possibilities in between. Since many of you reading this newsletter are students or past students, and this studio move will be a big change in your life as well, I wanted to share some ideas about how to deal with and use change to support your life.
The path of yoga often accompanies a great deal of transformation, both internally and externally. Change helps us know ourselves more fully when approached with a mind and heart open to embracing the opportunity. Change has been happening in my life for the last few years at a accelerated pace; I try my best to surrender, to let go, to trust, with a deep sense of gratitude for it all.
Change often causes suffering, though, because have resistance and we are attached to the way we think things should be or how we want them to be. Sometimes we want to provoke change to distract us from our feelings and sometimes we want to stop change in order to avoid dealing with certain aspects of ourselves. And sometimes change just happens and then what do we do? How do we know what is beneath this change? How do we know when we should embrace it and surrender to it, not passively, but with acknowledgment that there is only so much we can control in the world around us? This idea echoes what the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali tell us: that the nature of the material world is always changing and can cause suffering because of our attachments; therefore, through our spiritual practice, we connect with something larger and unchanging – our true Self - and recall that this is who we truly are. Acceptance, surrender, and unity – this is the antidote.
EXERCISE:
-When change is happening, notice if you are creating it, averting it, or desiring it.
-Without judging, when you watch your reaction to change, what do you see?
-How does this reaction feel in your mind and in your body?
-What habitual pattern of thought and action gets triggered by change?
-Are you willing to be changed by change?
Yours, in service,
KO
NEW STUDIO OPEN HOUSE IS ON FRIDAY, MAY 11, 5:00-8:00
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