Good morning, beautiful people, and happy Maitri Monday. I just came from a Yoga conference filled with Maitri, or kindness. It was unlike any conference I’d ever attended before.
This was the first Accessible Yoga Conference in New York City. Accessible Yoga’s motto is yoga is for everybody and for every body. This conference was a group of hundreds of Yoga teachers determined to teach Yoga to anyone who might not feel comfortable in a traditional Yoga class. People with plus-sized bodies, people with lupus, people using wheelchairs and walkers and canes. There were workshops on teaching Yoga to the deaf, to those with Lupus, to children with Autism, and even to people who couldn’t move at all.
That was my Yoga Tools workshop. It was based on teaching Yoga to a friend who became quadriplegic after a diving accident. The experience taught me that Yoga is so much more than Asana; Yoga is a life path that can be practiced anywhere, any time, by anybody. And by any body.
Swami Satchidananda, founder of Integral Yoga, where Accessible Yoga began, said, “We are not the body. We are not the mind.” We are all so much more. Yoga shows us how to become who we truly are.
The next time you get sick, or experience some level of discomfort with how your body feels or looks, remember: We are so much more than the body. We are so much more than the mind. All bodies are good bodies, as Dianne Bondy says. They are just sometimes in different shapes or conditions. No matter what, always remember: You are a divine light. Use your breathing to find your way within to where your true, peaceful, beautiful self calmly abides.
I’ll have a link to a video of my Yoga Tools Workshop in an upcoming post. There will also be a book on the Yoga Tools being published by North Star Way, a division of Simon & Schuster, in Spring of 2018. I’ll post details about that in a future blog.
For more information about Accessible Yoga, to find a teacher or become one, and to learn about the remarkable work of Rev. Jivana Heyman and the Accessible Yoga Ambassadors, visit accessibleyoga.org.