Sunday OM: Standing in Your Truth

This week has been filled will all kinds of information and energy circulating around us and everywhere we look.  I have watched intently as people everywhere feel compelled to speak their truth and spread it around to as many people as possible.  I have absolutely been an active participant in this.  There have been moments where it has felt as though my Vishuddha (throat) chakra was going to explode if I didn't tell everyone exactly how I felt right then and there.  There has been great passion behind my words and in my heart and even a few tears have been shed on account of how strongly I feel about what I have to say.  

  Then I stumbled upon a teaching from one of my very first teachers, Anne Marie, where she said "Who you are speaks louder than what you say".  In a moment, my throat softened, my eyes dried and the corners of my mouth turned upward with a knowing smile.  I realized that my truth exists regardless of how many people I tell it to.  Even more importantly, my truth exists regardless of how many people I convince to believe in it.  In such a moment in our history where we all want to be heard, I wonder if we are forgetting to listen, and not to each other (although always important), but to ourselves?  Are you able to stand on your own two feet, close your eyes and take on that knowing smile that you are comfortably, undeniably standing in your truth regardless of what is buzzing around you?  

  I think about this in terms of practicing yoga.  The yoga exists regardless of what you are doing in the pose.  Whether we fall out of or master a yoga pose, we are still in the practice of becoming aware and bringing into union our breath, body, mind and heart.   If we are standing in tree pose and we fall, nothing happens.  If we finally nail that handstand after months of trying, nothing happens.  The greater truth of yoga is that the pose itself is actually irrelevant.  It's HOW you practice the yoga that matters.  

  To be clear, in no way am I discouraging the importance of saying what you need to say when you need to say it.  I am a great lover of words and believe strongly in writing and speaking in a way that is filled with passion and honesty (hello I write a blog!).   The real test is to walk away from those words and not be concerned with how they land.  When we speak from truth and then stand in that truth, we can be sure that at some point, we and what we say will resonate with someone.  We can also be sure that with someone else, it will not.   
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  As this week progresses, intensifies and eventually falls from the peak of that intensity, can we really bring the practice and truth of yoga off the mat and into the world?  Regardless of outcomes and upsets, victories and defeats can we remain standing in what we know to be true?  Can we continue to place value not just in our words, but in HOW we move through our daily poses.  Michael Franti said that "If you think you need love right now, the truth is that love needs you".   I say, if you think the world needs your truth right now, the truth is so do you.  Peace, Love and Namaste everybody.  

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