Celebration
Being Yoga has a lot to celebrate! We’ve relocated to our new—and vastly improved—studio AND we’re commemorating our ninth birthday. Plans are underway for our Grand Re-opening/Birthday Celebration on October 27 (mark your calendars!), and we move forward to it with recognition of both the good fortune and hard work that has gone into the studio’s success. Our hearts are full of gratitude for all of you who have contributed to its accomplishment through your dedication, devotion and positive spirit, and we anticipate years ahead of celebrating more accomplishments together. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to read during this time of grand celebration that we have picked “celebration” as the theme word for the month. At Being Yoga, we believe that all of life’s accomplishments—big and small—should be recognized and rejoiced. Please read on to understand why:
Let’s just start with the big picture: Life itself should be celebrated! It’s pretty amazing that we are alive, experiencing physical bodies on an earth that is spinning around a sun in an endless universe. Every day that we live to see the sun rise, and every night that we see it set, we should take a moment to celebrate our ability to be cognizant of this wondrous experience. The problem is, however, that we tend to take it for granted and get caught up in the daily grind. We lose sight of how truly miraculous being alive is. We tend to focus on the mundane, get bogged down in the mundane, and then get so bogged down, we begin to smother in it.
Here’s where the small picture comes in: By making the effort to recognize and celebrate the little accomplishments in life, we can keep ourselves in touch, and appreciate, the bigger picture. In other words, by consciously rejoicing in all the small positives that fill our lives, we become aware of how meaningful each moment is and how precious our lives made up of those moments are.
Yoga is a great teacher of this. Every time we practice, we make incremental progress. Often yogis are not aware of their progress, but by actively striving to be aware of even the smallest accomplishment, our practices can become more meaningful. For example, you might recognize that you held perfectly still in sabasana, or that you consciously breathed throughout the entire class. Perhaps you were able to lower your hips down more than you have been able to before in Trikanasana (Triangle Pose), or maybe you held your standing leg completely straight for the first time in Dandayamana-Janushirasana (Standing Head to Knee Pose). By noting and celebrating each little success, you will find your practice becoming more rewarding. You will find that each success, no matter how small, will build more success. And success encourages us all to continue progressing and moving forward in a positive direction which leads to deeper appreciation and more large-scale achievements and satisfaction.
Such is life: By striving to appreciate—and celebrate—the small positives and accomplishments in it, we move into a broader level of success, appreciation and celebration for the amazing experience it is.