Let Love In

Last Saturday, in our sweet studio that I was certain could fit 8 yoga mats, 17 teachers on 15 mats assembled to move, breathe, chant, drink tea and talk. It was a healing moment on many levels. When I started writing these love notes 6 years ago, I wrote about a conversation that I'd had with my teacher about whether there was enough room for the growing number of yoga teachers in our small community. As a new teacher trying to establish myself here, I had to believe the answer was "yes." As a veteran teacher who was herself training a number of the new teachers, she wasn't so sure. 
Since that conversation, a lot has changed for both of us and for our yoga community. But, through shifting alliances and expanded opportunities to practice, the opening of studios and the migration of teachers, the influx of students and emergence of yoga as an industry, what remains is Yoga. Just as our kula is in constant flux, so is Yoga, and has been for more than 5,000 years. The practices adapt to the needs of the practitioners even as the essence endures. 
And this is what was so inspiring and important to experience in the company of my colleagues and friends: this practice, which we all "do" differently, is expansive enough to welcome us all. It is only our limited perspective--like my conviction that we could fit half as many people as we did--that inhibits our evolution. ​
My wish for each of us is to sense the spaciousness in your mind, heart and life. May you let go of the question of enoughness. Trade it in for a new inquiry: what else/who else can you include?
Notice when limiting beliefs take over: whether you're considering how many people you can host in your space, what your next career move could be, or what kind of love you give and receive. And when the light of awareness shines on entrenched ideas, may you remember that like everything and everyone, you are constantly shifting, expanding to encompass reality as it evolves.
In other words, there may be room for it all, but you get to choose what (and whom) you invite into your mind, your heart, and your life. May we greet this new month--one in which we celebrate Love--with the intention to invite Love in.