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Sitting here, I light my morning candle.

Being open to a little quiet. Checking in.
Each day, a new discovery!

 

Intentional Living, when it’s coming from the right place, is not a discipline–but instead, a joy and a kindness. And it’s more real. It has more openness in it.

It can easily become a chore if we turn it into self-improvement, for although it does seem we are working with the mind and our thoughts, we are not. We are working with life. We are not trying to control. We are simply finding our way, day by day.

I like it because it gives me a healthy structure. Having a candle ceremony can be a fun “practice”. Instead of a top-down approach, here we listen for what bubbles up from wisdom, in the spirit and environment that we create for ourselves each day.

 

To join this upcoming monthly class, you just have to pop in and give it a try. Learning self-compassion and how to show ourselves a little more understanding, our life learnings become more like adventures than obstacles. We begin to remember that life is right here in the middle of our day-to-day lives and we are here to learn and grow, but from the right place! We CAN remember how it felt as children, waking up excited, ready for anything.

The “practice” of living intentionally here with us, is fun and life-affirming, letting our wisdom guide us.

 

So please do, join in if you like, any last Monday of the month if you would like to learn more about our Candle ceremony and feel supported in your life.

In February, we will be introduced to our Intentional Living Calendar. Leading in to new and more fun topics throughout the year. Together we can discover things for ourselves that might be helpful and supportive as we make our way through any situations that may arise in the coming year.

One good thing about how confused our world seems right now, is that we can see right before our eyes, how dangerous opinions can be.

Strong opinions. Left opinions. Right opinions. Opinions based on facts. Opinions based on… well, opinions. There are many kinds! And the only reason I say dangerous, is that it seems that we would even kill each other based on opinions.

When we say on the direct path, the love of “truth”, it is not a love for something. Truth here in this sense is not a position we take on something in the world, but it’s  more of an orientation in the moment itself in your experience. Truth is not something we know intellectually, it is more about knowing how little we know actually.

 

So when I say “one good thing about the seemingly confused world we live in right now”, is we can see how flimsy opinions actually are.

 

And this is a glimpse when you see it for yourself.

 

When you see that the world is much more mysterious that we think, our righteous sense of certainty about things can relax a little. There are many ways to relax, and this is a good one!

 

For isn’t it true that it could all be a dream? Could, no need to conclude by saying it’s all a dream, but it could be a dream, right? Isn’t that true? Haven’t you ever woken in the morning and were surprised you were just dreaming? It felt so real. Being in that openness of not knowing if this is a dream or not helps us release into a type of freedom from the weight of our own conclusions, if we are willing to let ourselves be uncertain in this way.

And so when politically we say, you have your truth and I have mine, we are talking about our opinions. It seems nice that in today’s world we try to be respectful of so many differing opinions. When spiritually we say, the love of truth or the desire for truth, we are not talking about the known. We are talking about a willingness to be open. We are talking about a mysterious interest in something deeper than our mental conclusions about life. We are not talking about the flimsy ways we find our way in our lives, we are talking about the deeper questions such as who am I and what is really going on here?

 

No matter where we are, we are always right here. Never before has it been more apparent, at least in my lifetime. There are a lot of opinions about things circulating these days, predictions, ideas, causes, solutions, fears, hopes…. so much, but the truth that the Wisdom traditions have always been pointing out is that we never really know what is next. This is always the case. We’ve never been in control. One thing that has always been though, is an opportunity to truly be here, with ourselves, in the moment and to find okayness right where you are.

And not just that, this could be a great time!

Things are still very much changing day by day in this global situation. We are adapting globally, nationally, locally, individually…..  and this is an incredible opportunity actually. Many are reflecting on how much we are all learning at this time, and how much is being revealed to us. Change brings fear and there are things we can do to help this world and it starts at home. How we are with ourselves, within ourselves, and with each other has a tremendous effect on what happens.

When people wonder, “what is going to happen?” This is a creative moment. From where you choose to take your stand in this moment gives shape to the next. The beauty of what we do here at Yogaheart is that we take care of ourselves in a profound way, and we pave the way for wisdom to flow through our lives, through the good times and times of challenge.

The beauty of life is not in what happens, but how we are in it, with it.

You see, how you see has a profound effect on everything from how you live, to what you say, to what you do, to how you sleep. This season, let’s keep leaning into dissolving some of the unnecessary fears and misunderstandings we may be carrying in order to lighten our lives through all kinds of weather. It can be a little grey in the Maritimes in the Spring, but it is the rain that brings the flowers, so let us, together, see deeply during this time of global need.

If you wonder what goes on during Francis Lucille retreats, I must admit it is not easy to describe.

It’s easy to tell you about the delicious food, wonderful friendships, and the beauty of the space itself—these retreats have all aspects of everything you may dream a yoga retreat would be. However amazingly, these aspects are, by far, not the best part.

Looking deeply at modern yoga, it is possible to root out an underlying assumption that carries over from the way we approach pretty much everything it seems. This assumption has an if this, then that formula. For example, if we improve the body and mind, then we may feel we are really getting somewhere, and one day we might even get “there”. But what does getting there mean really?

One thing I’ve learned from Francis, is how many of our feelings and motivations have gone uninvestigated. In particular, the effort of trying to resolve a deep discomfort by getting somewhere is precisely what keeps us on the treadmill. It’s exhausting. “If only I had better health, more money, if I fixed this, changed that, improved this, got rid of that…” and the list goes on and on. We never really stop to ask ourselves if this particular way we are trying to work it out really works. I’m not suggesting we should stop working towards betterment. Doing our best is obviously a great way to take care in this world, but moreso, I’m pointing out something more fundamental.

The question is, what will you get when you get what you want?

“Hmmm, well… then I’ll be happy!”

The Dalai Lama once said, “Go ahead and keep doing your best, but be happy now.”

I know. This seems simple and easy to say. The question we could then ask him is, “How?” And of course, some of us are relatively happy to a degree, but what he means is really happy—you know, a deeper type of happiness that is content, even when things aren’t always going our way. A peaceful, happy kind of contentment. A broader view. This is what yoga really has to offer.

And still the question remains, how? The answer to this question begins with one main prerequisite—an interest. Maybe at first we are mildly interested when hearing something like this, but then the desire to keep going down old roads might still be strong (in yoga philosophy, we call this Tamas). Or perhaps we really don’t believe that happiness can be lasting, or possible exactly as we are—as it is. Or maybe we’ve just simply put far too much investment in how we have been doing things and we are just going to settle with this plan, because after all, at least it is familiar—and, well, good enough anyway.

And that is of course, perfectly fine. But for those who are tired of those old roads that don’t really, upon investigation, deliver on their promises, there is another way.

In the beginning, starting to turn the ship around may indeed feel like a bit of a challenge. But once you start, little things do start to shift. More and more things begin to really reveal themselves and you start to see for yourself that it is worth it! We begin to see that the effort we were putting into old ways now seem so heavy. And this new effort we are putting into this investigation is really lightening the load. We finally begin to see that we’ve been looking for lasting happiness in all the wrong places.

…and the greatest thing is that it was never far.

In fact…

…it was in us all along. Everything we ever wanted.

It’s an amazing discovery, for, once found, it’s the end of the search. But it’s not really the end, it’s actually the beginning.

ॐ