Why Practice?

I spent 5 nights the Sivananda Ashram in the Bahamas recently. This wasn’t my first time at the Ashram but this time felt different. As if I was ready. Ever since I returned from the ashram, I've been contemplating how to share my experience with this amazing community.

Because since I've been back, I've felt content. Peaceful. Grateful for life in a way that feels both familiar and new.

As I sat with those feelings, I kept coming back to why?

What created the peace? What brought about the contentment and this overall love for life? Was it the ashram that changed me, or did it simply remind me of something I had forgotten?

At first, I thought it was the ocean, the nourishing food, the meditation, the chanting, the rhythm of ashram life. And all of that was certainly part of the experience. But then I realized something.

I do many of those same things at home. I spend time in nature. I cook. I meditate. I contemplate. I teach yoga every single day. So what was different?

The ashram reminded me of why I practice.

I don't practice yoga or meditation because I'm trying to become someone else. I practice because whatever we repeat becomes familiar. We rehearse stress. We rehearse stories about who we are and what our lives should look like. Eventually, those patterns begin to feel like the truth.

Practice gently interrupts that cycle. It reminds us that we have another way of being. Every day we are practicing something. The question is: What are you becoming familiar with?

Sometimes our daily lives pull us so far away from our center with its constant noise, flashing lights, endless notifications, and promises that happiness is somewhere just around the corner, or in those new boots.

At the ashram, I met an amazing energy worker, Kim Bellisimo. She teaches about the elements. She isn’t a yoga student. She’s a student of life. Kim saw me - the energetic, spiritual me - and I will forever be grateful to her. She reminded me that we are all in direct relationship with life.

I asked myself what if I just need to stop practicing everything that pulls me away from my heart? Peace wasn't something I found in the Bahamas. It was something I remembered.

An inner practice isn't about escaping life. It's about becoming familiar with your own mind. It's how we begin to notice the stories we've been believing, the habits we've been feeding, and the emotions we've been rehearsing without even realizing it.

How many times have you lived through a conversation in your mind that never actually happened? How many times have you practiced worry before anything even went wrong?

Life is always changing. Yesterday was hard. Today feels easy. Last year I was walking through fire. This year, I am releasing in water and grounding in earth. The seasons will continue

to change. There will be joy. There will be heartbreak.There will be certainty, followed by uncertainty. Storms will come.

That isn't a sign you've failed your practice. It's simply life.

So why do we practice inner awareness?

I believe we practice so we can meet life as it is. Not waiting for the perfect circumstances before allowing ourselves to feel peaceful. Not searching outside ourselves for something that has quietly been within us all along.

We are in relationship with life.

Practice being with it.

Today.

Tomorrow.

Next week.

Next year.

Keep growing.

Keep shedding.

Keep returning.

Not because you're trying to become someone new, but because each time you return, you remember who you've always been.

And perhaps that is the sweetest fruit of the practice. It gently guides us back to our own heart, again and again. We find our roots so we can go higher.