I need a change...

I have been struggling with changing the function and purpose of this blog for the past couple of months. I have been trying to decide if I want to delete this blog and begin a new one or just change the path of this blog. I'm still not sure what my ultimate goal or decision is going to be, but for now, I can't let go of this particular space so I'm just going to shift the direction a little.

When I first began this blog, I had tons of time to take pictures and tons of time to update a blog. The use of my time has changed quite a bit over the past four years. And as that has changed, you have seen fewer and fewer posts over a longer and longer period of time. My last post was over 6 months ago at this point, and I have nothing exciting to say about what has happened since then. Not only that, I'm not sure I want to discuss what's happening explicitly in my life right now anyway. Who cares, right?! Ultimately we are all just trying to live our lives the best we can every day.

What I have found more interesting in my life at this point is to focus on little pieces of wisdom that I have learned through yoga or life as a teacher or just life in general. I'm not exactly sure how to share these moments with you because I have rarely done that here, in this space, and sometimes it is difficult to put words to these small moments of gratitude or little lights of revelation that appear in my life.

One thing that I have thought about a lot over the past year is how to accept myself and other people just as they are. Not as they were yesterday or a year ago ... but as they are at this moment in time, right now. First I have to learn how to accept myself as I am right now, which can be VERY difficult. My tendency, and maybe our culture's tendency, is to constantly criticize ourselves and evaluate how we could do better at whatever it is that we our doing, whether it is our job, or our yoga practice, or our relationships, or anything else in our lives. In order to accept myself as I am right now, I have to be LESS critical and judgmental and MORE accepting. It's not always easy. But I will tell you that it is much easier to accept others as they are when I am able to be more accepting of myself.

I have been told (and I have experienced it for myself): acceptance is the key to serenity.

Sometimes it simply takes being willing and able to say something like: I accept myself as I am and I accept others as they are. We are all doing the best we can.

Sometimes it means being willing and able to say that over and over again until we actually believe it. Sometimes it takes days or weeks or years to believe these things, just like it took years to cultivate an attitude of judgment toward ourselves and others. Acceptance is the key to serenity. Acceptance is the key to serenity...