About Me

Yoga changed my Life and it's just too good a thing to keep to myself! I have been practicing yoga since 1995 and am a certified yoga instructor. I teach a combination of classical Hatha, Ashtanga and Vinyasa Flow. My teaching style is safe, compassionate and challenging at the same time. I teach at a number of studios, and also offer private and group lessons!

In addition to my schedule, I post other writings here, about yoga and Life in general. For private or group lessons, contact me at: workofheartyoga@gmail.com .

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Where to find peace in a world turned upside down?

My dear friends, the past few weeks, or months have been hard ones. The world is in upheaval. I have felt it listening to the news, I have seen the images splashed across the media, I have friends I fear for abroad. I have seen it on the streets where my children live and go to school, I have seen anger and violence in traffic patterns, criss-crossing my daily life. I have felt it in my heart for children everywhere. I fear sometimes for my own. And now I feel the sadness for a man lost in his own pain, sadness and anger, who was so widely known and yet felt so alone.

How do we go about our days? How do we do the things we normally do? How does the world not stop turning, how does life continue when there is so much heaviness?

I've been wrestling with these questions lately myself. As a mother, I often do not have the luxury of grieving or processing these things upon their arrival in my life. My children carry a momentum with them that usually sweeps me away with them. But the other night I sat up, way too late for my own good, reading this lovely book, "The Yamas and the Niyamas: Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice," by Deborah Adele. And I came across a quote that I think has huge implications for us as individuals, but also for people, societies, our world at large. I wanted to share it with you all. I have never heard anything so challenging, so true, so inexplicably simple and yet complicated. It is the work we all need to do. I hope it will resonate with you.

The author, Adele, in her second chapter quotes a statement made by Etty Hillesum, a young holocaust victim:

"Ultimately we have just one moral duty:
to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves,
more and more peace,
and to reflect it towards others.
And the more peace there is in us,
the more peace there will also be
in our troubled world."

Sending out as much love as I can,
-April