Are things hard or do they just seem hard?

Are things hard for all of us right now, or do they just seem hard? The gift of a mindfulness-based yoga practice is that it helps us see the difference.

Much of what's happening right now is really, actually, hard. It's hard to manage the fear of an unpredictable and highly contagious virus. It's hard to imagine that we might not know the results of a gut-gripping and history-making presidential election by the evening of our traditional election day. It's hard to see others in pain. It's hard to accept that norms are changing. It's hard to disagree with friends and family. It's hard to watch ideological conflict ignite violence. It's hard to admit that our country's fault lines run along centuries-old structures of racism. It's hard to see that our own personal difficulties might be less awful than others', and yet our own scale of awful can't be discounted. All of that is real, and all of it is hard.

And then, there's what seems hard. It can seem hard to take a slow, steady breath, until we notice we're doing it anyway. It can seem hard to show loving kindness toward another person in spite of their painful views or distasteful behavior, until we picture them as a small child before the world got hold of them, and remember they still have the same vulnerable heart they were born with. And it can seem hard to imagine a future day when today's challenges will be behind us, until we remember our challenges of the past, and it feels like lifetimes ago when we overcame them.

Learning to be fully present with what's rising up in the tide of right now, we can allow the receding tide to carry away the stuff that seems hard but isn't really. And then when we're left with the truly difficult stuff, we're ready for it. We don't practice yoga so we can feel better when everything is easy. This skill-building, consciousness-raising, heart-calming, mind-clearing work is made for the moments when things are hard.

Let’s meet and greet this week’s events — together — with steady breath, loving kindness and connected hearts.

In this with you,
Annie & Amir