Bring your whole life

Reading from Tuesday, February 2, 2016 yoga class

The following is from an article posted on the "Yoga for Healthy Aging" website entitled "After Hurricane Katrina" by Mary Ann Avallone-O'Gorman.

She begins the article telling the story of how she came to yoga after Hurricane Katrina, where her home was damaged, her marriage crumbling and she was living on wine and take-out food.  She ends the piece with the following:

"As I come up on my ten-year anniversary, I come to my practice every day with new preparation, new practices.  I say to my students, "You bring your whole life to the mat.  Your wisdom.  Your strength.  Your failures.  Your attitude about all these things.  Use what serves you.  Observe what does not.  Place it gently to the side.  That act, in itself, is a yogic practice.  Recognize all the traits you brings to all that you do.  Allow your yoga practice to be exactly that: a practice of and for your whole life."  But I am talking to myself.  Happy anniversary to me, and to all yoga practitioners who come to the mat for a day, a week, a year, a lifetime."