I have this belief that how I spend New Year’s Eve will set the tone for the whole rest of the year. I’m not sure where that belief came from and I know that it isn’t true. Yet, I choose to believe it.

How did I want this next year to be?

I decided I wanted to do something different than years past. I had no idea what that was but felt confident it would find me. I was clear in my intention for what I wanted and didn’t want out of the night.

A few days before I had a dear friend come to mind and something in me knew that reaching out to her would be exactly what I needed. So I did. I asked what she was doing for New Year’s and she responded immediately, inviting me along with her friends for the night and mentioned going to a park to celebrate.

I spend New Year’s in Canada each year and being outside feels like a very cold thought. The notion has never appealed to me. In the past I would rather stay home by myself than be crazy enough to stand outside for hours. Except this year it felt like the exact right thing.

And so I set off to meet my friend, and a bunch of people I had never met. No one answered the door so I walked in to a stranger’s house, hoping it was the right one. And was welcomed immediately with warmth.

My friend introduced me to everyone by saying “this is Heather, I love her”. What a lovely way to be greeted. I couldn’t help smiling each time.

Just before I left my house I had a note from my friend that we weren’t going to the park any more due to the cold. But, shortly after I arrived talk of going to the park came up. I felt myself grow hesitant and subtle blocks came up in my body starting to close me off.

Since I had thought we weren’t going to the park any more I had chosen to wear a blue wool dress with a silver belt, blue tights, burgundy and orange striped knee-high socks, and a burgundy cape-like cardigan. I looked like a woolen superhero but knew my powers would not be of emanating warmth in the minus twenty-plus degree weather (Celsius!) outside.

In the past I wouldn’t have said anything. I would have either stayed behind and missed out, miserable and dwelling in disappointment, or I would have gone in what I was wearing, frozen and let myself be incredibly uncomfortable. Either way, I would have chosen to suffer. I would have chosen to suffer instead of ask others for what I needed. And those were my first thoughts when the situation came up. I immediately assumed I couldn’t go or would freeze to death and was weighing out which one I wanted more.

But something was different. I didn’t want either of those options. I looked down at my attire and pointed out to my friend that I didn’t think we were going outside so I hadn’t dressed appropriately. She immediately offered me her near-floor length parka so that it would cover all of me. I resisted a few times and then once I knew she had another coat, accepted.

Still not convinced I would be warm enough I mentioned my dilemma to one of the men there who was putting on his boots, getting ready to go outside. He immediately asked if I wanted his long johns. I’m not really in the habit of taking people’s undergarments for warmth and his offer surprised me. He insisted he would be warm enough. I refused a couple of times before saying, “well, actually I kinda would like them”. And he went to strip them off and hand them over. There, another layer under the warm coat.

And so our bundled-up group set off into the night toward the downtown core.

We arrived and I mentioned my hands were cold, despite my mittens. Yet another person had a pair of gloves he wasn’t using and gave them to me. This time I only resisted once before accepting.

Surprised each time at the generosity of strangers. Surprised each time that I was actually asking for what I needed. And even more surprised that I allowed the help. Accepted it through minimal resistance.

The countdown kicked off in the square, we all shouted along, and then the New Year was upon us.

Within the first few seconds, the man who had given me his long johns gave me a New Year’s kiss, each person who I had only met a couple of hours before gave me a big hug and New Year greetings as though I had always been part of their community. And as the band played, I danced.

I danced in the New Year outside on a crisp winter’s night feeling fully supported, loved, warm and a part of all that is. Bright, beaming energy was emanating out of every cell and I felt full.

I don’t know if that belief I have about New Year’s is true but it certainly was a perfect way to ring in the New Year and I’d like to believe it will set the tone for all that is yet to come.

I remember the first time it happened – the first time I truly noticed.

I was walking home and arrived at a corner. I looked up to see a man ride past on his bike and in one magical, smooth, natural moment he caught my eye, smiled, winked and nodded at me all at once. My heart responded by filling with a feeling of overflowing fullness and the corners of my lips turned upward.

I thought to myself, “there’s this whole secret language. There’s this whole secret language out there of which I have not been a part”. It felt like an underground movement – nods, winks, smiles passed on only to those people in the “know”. And here I was after all these years being included.

I smiled the whole way home thinking of the magic and secret that was just revealed to me. I can still clearly see the man’s face.

I started noticing more and more – people smiling at me on the street. Saying, “good morning”. Sometimes every person I passed on the way to the subway in the morning would offer some sort of acknowledgement. It’s hard to say who started it – me or them – but it doesn’t matter.

Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to travel to India.

The secret language I had found in New York was everywhere. Everyone – and I mean everyone – looking each other in the eye. Offering and receiving a deep sense of connection. Every person I met took the time to look me in the eye, smile and sometimes nod or prayer their hands to their heart center and bow. They would often bow in acknowledgement and say “namaste”. The light in me sees/honours the light in you. And there it felt so powerfully true. I became immersed and always offered back the same acknowledgment in return. It was all so deeply filling. So fulfilling to engage in this way with fellow human beings.

An exchange.

That’s what was happening so subtle on the streets in New York.

I came back and reentry was rough. I was immediately depressed. I felt isolated and without connection. The secret language seemingly had disappeared here.

In time I recovered and resolved to keep practicing. To smile at every single person I pass. To acknowledge people on the subway. To carry on the legacy of the secret language that man on the bike had invited me to participate in. An initiation.

And so I do. I practice.

And I watch without judgement and am so honoured not only by the people who respond with a big gracious smile, those whose hearts seem to open, but also to those who look away, or down, or straight ahead. At that moment unable to connect in that way. And that’s okay.

I notice my own responses. How I fill through every cell when someone smiles back. How my heart lifts. How I smile even more deeply. How I say “good morning” or “hello” back. Or sometimes say it first. How I’m still surprised when someone greets me verbally, but I love it. How when someone looks to feel uncomfortable or seems to avoid me what my responses are in those moments. To know that I don’t know how they feel or what’s going on in their lives. I ask myself can I still feel full without the exchange of a smile? Can I still give them the acknowledgement and love without feeling it back? Can I let go of expectations each and every time? Can I let go of judgment?

Of course I too do not yet practice this at every moment or with every person I pass. And when I haven’t been speaking this language for a couple of days I notice. I notice that I feel closed off and anxious. Ungrounded. And then I realize that I’ve been caught up in my own thoughts or focus and haven’t been acknowledging others in this way and so I come back to the practice again and again.

As with any language it takes time to learn to speak. But it’s no secret.  Whether or not it’s with a smile – this is a language that we all know. One we each have access to. And I feel so grateful to that man on the bike for my initiation and to be able to practice with everyone I meet.

Namaste.

Four years. Four. Four years.
Four years here.

It keeps repeating for me this week.

Four. Four. Four.

In a way it won’t compute.

I see it in my apartment – four years in the same place. And it feels like it’s been four minutes and nothing has changed; and it feels like in those four minutes everything has changed.

As I walked to the studio to teach earlier this week I thought about the nearly four years of taking those same steps – that same route. Back and forth. Over and over again. The same route and yet different each time.

Four years.

With an unknown experience waiting at the other end of that worn path each time.

Four years.

When I arrived here in New York four years ago I was in a place of deep grief, self-recrimination and self-destruction.

I had practiced yoga before moving here for several years. I went once a week no matter what was going on in my life and I rarely missed a class. Even when it was a half an hour drive to get there I still went. I really can’t say that I loved it or that I didn’t love it at the time. I can’t even say what it was that kept bringing me back each week but something did.

When I moved to New York that four-years-ago October I can’t say I particularly missed that weekly class (aside from missing my teacher) though I did notice its absence.

A few months passed and I could feel myself continue to destruct. I kept feeling something build inside me and repeat “you need yoga” over and over again. It grew in intensity until one night I finally listened. I sat down on my couch, resolved to find a studio, and searched on Google maps for a one nearby. The only studio that appeared was a place called Shambhala Yoga & Dance (though I’ve since learned there are several studios much closer to where I live). My decision was made. That’s where I would go.

It was January. Brutally cold. Snowing.

I felt ripped apart throughout my entire being. My internal state seemingly reflected by the weather. It took all my effort to drag myself, hunched over, legs heavy to the studio feeling miserable, freezing, broken, fearful and alone.

I arrived at the front door, took a deep breath then held it and wiped the tears from my eyes. I walked in and the small space was hot, already packed with people, and barely a breath of space in between each mat. The scene felt overwhelming and I felt stuck in place.

I looked around and my heart fell even further as I realized that the only place left to put my mat was in the disgusting, dirty, grey, boot sludge the others had dragged in off the street and left at the back of the room as they took off their boots. I already felt like I was lower than the boot sludge and I did not want to put my mat down in it. Instantly depressed, I nearly burst into tears.

As I turned to no longer have to face the sludge, trying not to cry and contemplating if I should leave, the teacher caught my eye and brightly shone saying, “welcome!” with open arms and a big smile. “What’s your name?”

I nearly burst into tears again, but this time of gratitude and relief.

It was enough for me to decide I would give in to the boot sludge. I wanted to be there. I wanted to stay. I knew I needed to stay.

The teacher followed up by asking the class, “is anyone new to vinyasa?”

I put up my hand desperately, having no clue what she was talking about.

“Can anyone switch places with Heather since she’s new so that she’s facing the same way as the rest of us?” (The boot sludge space was perpendicular to the rest of the mats). Some wonderful person volunteered seconds before I had put my mat down and I was rescued from the depths of the boot sludge.

In those few moments of kindness and caring, healing began.

And I kept coming back. Walking that same path over and over again to the studio. And then to it’s new home down the street and now its second location. Returning over and over as a student, as a trainee, as a teacher, to give and receive healing, to offer, to hold the space for others and to be held, to participate in ceremonies, circles, community.

And I continue to return in each of these roles – never knowing what experience will unfold, or whom I will meet, never knowing what emotions will emerge, or what depths will be traversed, but always grateful for each and every one (even when I feel like boot sludge). Grateful that without knowing what awaited me that first cold night, I still took the steps to find it.

Everything has changed in those four years that feel like four minutes. The change feels both gradual and instant. Through the practice of yoga, I’ve come to realize that it is all part of a long process of healing, learning, unfolding, living. Living each day without knowing the ending. Without knowing what’s next, but continuing to walk this path through life over and over again trusting in whatever experiences await and listening to what I need to be with and in each one that comes.

For most of my life I shied away from physical activity. In sports I would get confused by the “point” of it – running after a ball I certainly wouldn’t get to first only to have to run another way to try to get it again (doubtful). And for what? I couldn’t quite wrap my head around drills or warm-ups when they were explained or drawn out. Being small, I would often get hurt when playing group games. I hated running around the block in gym class and so I walked. When stretching, my hamstrings were so tight and aching I couldn’t come close to reaching my toes. Aerobics class? Forget it – keeping in step with everyone else was not going to happen. For years – decades – I believed I wasn’t good at it. That I didn’t like it. I later came up with more elaborate excuses – telling myself that I had absolutely no muscle memory. That I had no ability. That I simply couldn’t do it.

As this belief held and grew my energy drifted and concentrated further and further into my brain and I disconnected from my body. I was a big academic head floating around with a very weak anchor of a body trailing along below. Or so I know now.

After decades of ignoring the fact that I had this physical body (which I never really understood how to be in or use) I had developed a practice of moving up into my head pretty much exclusively. After experiencing a significant trauma there came what felt like a break. A force of energy so big it felt like it shattered my weakened body and even my seemingly strong brain couldn’t handle the blow – I felt it split and shattered to fragments.

Until one day when I was strongly called to a Highland Dance workshop. Given my background with physical movement and the state I was in I was terrified to go. Something guided me into a small studio in Midtown Manhattan. I was running at least 15 minutes late. Walking in, frazzled and breathless, I met the teacher who was waiting. And I was the only one who showed up.

I was the only one who showed up.

There I stood frozen for a moment as I took in the situation. Having never taken a dance class in my life and now here I was and it was just the teacher and I.

My freeze turned to panic and then grew into intimidation and outright fear. I couldn’t do this. There was no way. And then… we started.

After some warm ups we moved into foot positions. She showed me third position of the feet. And then asked me to do it. I stared at her. I stared at her foot and tried to move mine. The force of will and concentration was immense and yet my foot wouldn’t budge. No way. It wasn’t going to move.

“See, like this”, she said again, patiently showing me.

I tried again. Nothing. Despite all my efforts and even looking at my foot to try to make it go I couldn’t do it.

After a while I admitted, “I’m actually trying really hard to do that”.

She came over and sweetly picked my foot up off the ground and placed it in position.

And my brain started to shift. I could feel its inner-workings move through the shards.

We did manage a few steps on that first day. By the end of the second day my brain had started to move and shift in ways I had never experienced before. Slow circles and circuitry connecting. Whatever it was doing I knew I needed it to keep happening.

So we started a weekly class that carries on to this day.

The following year I started my yoga teacher training. Still timid about movement and still believing that I had no muscle memory or physical ability, despite how far dance had brought me. Every time I could do something new on the mat I was blown away, excited. I began to understand the interrelationship of energy, mind, body and spirit. Not just in theory but in practice. Though experience. I began to understand how to bring all that energy that lived solely in my brain down into my body. Through my yoga practice I began to break down and through many psychological blocks held physically in my body – removing the obstructions and creating an ease of energetic flow. Over and over again. An ongoing practice and journey of release. I’ve kept dancing but I also continue to develop the tools through yoga to understand the shifts and to encourage more connection and flow between my mind and body instead of keeping them separate. They’re no longer absolute. No longer segmented and held away from one another. Instead I’m remembering my wholeness.

And that’s what happened on that first day of dance. A reconnection of wholeness. Removing the separation of mind and body. That’s what those first shifts were. That’s how it began.

Tonight I found myself in my first salsa class. Just over three years after taking that first dance workshop and working so hard all this time on reconnecting my mind and body. I had put the regular precursors in place – “I won’t be able to do this”. “It takes me a long time to pick up dance steps”. “I don’t think I have hips – you’ll have to help me find them”! Three years since taking that first step of reconnection and still the belief hasn’t quite let go. And yet – I picked up every single step quickly. We moved through a lot and I was right there and in sync with everyone the whole time. I could do it! One woman at the end of class said, “I thought you said you couldn’t dance!? You’re a great dancer”! I resisted her at first, denying what she said, and then smiled, realizing what had happened in class, and simply said “thank you”.

For months I have had a strong block around cleaning my apartment.

I would stand in front of the dishwasher and know that it had to be emptied in order to clear off the counter – and yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Different emotions including anger, frustration and fear would start to build up against the block and I’d move off to something else to avoid it all. Only to find that I couldn’t complete that next task either and I’d circle on to the next thing and back to the dishwasher again.

Even as a kid I could not bring myself to pick up after myself. Despite my mother’s best efforts to explain the benefits of doing so I simply couldn’t. I have always been oblivious to the piles of stuff around me. They’d lie there until I got worked up to a point where I could fling myself against them and purge and clean everything out in a flight of activity knowing that it wouldn’t take long to be stacked back up again.

For the first time in my life I started to notice mess more constantly – the piles of things I’d dropped in various places. For years I’d stepped around and over the piles on the floor, blind to the covered tabletops and counter tops. Only now something was starting to shift – I noticed. I noticed the block with the dishwasher. I grew agitated at the piles on the table. I wanted it all gone. To move. But wasn’t sure how to do it and so it all sat there, waiting.

It seems simple. Just pick the stuff up. Just empty the dishwasher – right? So then why was it so hard? Why couldn’t I just do it? And why did I suddenly care? Why was I suddenly noticing something I’d been oblivious to for my entire life?

I realized that I wanted to jump over the middle part of actually cleaning and just have it be done. Avoid the middle part. I could see the end but not how to get there. I contemplated getting someone in to clean but that didn’t feel like it would solve anything. No… there was something more to it.

I began to wonder do I skip over the middle part in all aspects of life? Or just cleaning? And it occurred to me that I do know how to do the middle part. I practice it in yoga every day and in every class I teach. Moving through. Beginning. Middle. End. Over and over and over again. Which means – I can do this. I know how. So why was the dishwasher different?

That helped jiggle the edges of the block a little bit.

And then it hit me – it wasn’t the dishwasher I was angry with or wanting to avoid. That mix of emotions was linked to a past trauma and wanting to skip over that traumatic event and not have to move through it.

A few days later I had a Maya Abdominal Massage and I could actually feel decades of stagnant energy move within me. It felt necessary.

At the end the practitioner said “you need to let go”.

Let go.

I realized how much stagnant energy was in my body. I could feel candida overgrowth, literal stagnant energy I’ve struggled with for years, shaking lose. And before that too, years of clinging. Not moving my body. Trying to force things to happen. Skipping the middle. Using my energy to go around or over or under or away or any direction other than through.

When I returned home I could see the piles of stagnant energy all around me – the dishwasher – a block because it allowed the dishes to pile up – keeping stagnant energy all around me. I could see the external reality of my internal state. I had been blind to it because it was part of my subconscious that I wasn’t ready to see. I had been blind to it because it was a comfort to have the internal and external mirror each other.

I felt safe, somehow, by collecting the stagnant energy so I could keep avoiding. I could keep placing the blocks there to protect myself. Perhaps every single trauma, no matter how large or small, over the course of my whole life had been collected and stored in a way that I didn’t have to move through them. I had created padding around these traumatic events and held onto every single last piece of it so I didn’t have to face the fear or emotions. So I could get to a point where moving through felt impossible – so I could trick myself into believing I didn’t have to. Except that now the same stagnant energy I’d been collecting my whole life wants to move through. It isn’t needed any more. I don’t need it any more. And it is starting to flow instead of sitting, waiting and stagnating. I am starting to flow through without needing the padding to protect me.

Through restorative yoga and yoga nidra (in particular, though certainly it’s the union of all the different yoga I have been fortunate enough to study and practice) I have discovered a pattern – I tend to look back and focus on the hard moments, the painful ones, the difficult ones. I cling to them and hoard them. Wear them often as an armor. As I continue to connect to my yoga practice I am starting to become lighter. Allowing these moments of pure joy to fill my entire being. To let them to be there. To smile. And to, once again, feel the intensity and fullness of laughter and happiness – to know that I can close my eyes, surrender, and let the universe guide me – and nothing bad is going to happen as a result.

Last week I walked slowly around a field filled with cherry trees, wandering from place to place in no particular pattern until I found the spot that felt right to stop and be. As I moved back and forth from one side of the field to the other, my lower back in a bit of pain, I wondered gently why I couldn’t settle into one place. Even though physically I wanted to stop and could stop “right here” I didn’t. Until I was guided to the place where sitting down on the ground felt right.

As I sat I had a flash of a memory appear. When I was in Damanhur earlier this year I walked through the energetic stone circuits. The first one I walked was quite large – as I stood at the entrance in the center of the circuit in front of me I saw to my left the painted yellow, blue and red stones were laid out in lines and to my right in a circle.

I had surgery on my left leg two weeks prior to traveling and for a while couldn’t walk at all. My stitches were still in and I could walk with a cane in hand to try to keep some stability even though each step was difficult and slightly painful. At first I thought I couldn’t do it at all and then I decided I could and because of my condition I wanted to be mindful of the way I went through the circuit. I wanted to take as few steps as possible. That way my leg wouldn’t be in as much pain and I could still receive the benefits of the circuit.

I started out on the path and was drawn towards the circle. Winding around in spirals as I stepped with care I tried to look at the patterns of the stones so I could figure out the best route for me – the one where I wouldn’t have to walk as much and could rest my leg. I wanted to rest in the center of the circle where there were fewer stones and a place to lay down.

Every time I became tired from the exertion it took I paused and recalculated my route. How can I get there without too many steps? I looked at the stones and how they were laid out, chose what was obviously the most direct path that would let me take care of myself with the least amount of effort expended. All of my attention was on my leg and figuring it out. I walked along only to discover that I came to a dead end. My head dropped and I laughed thinking, “of course”. I turned around and started back realizing the effort this was taking. I worried that I wasn’t doing the right thing for my leg, and started to wonder if I should have started at all. Now I had no choice – I had to keep going through the circuit.

Again I looked for the path that would take me to the center of the circle. I scanned the layout and mapped my course to figure it out, logically thinking which way I should go to ensure the shortest and most direct path. This time, as it turned out, I chose the longer route and ended up at the same dead end. I laughed and sighed. My leg seared.

I turned around again and started back saying, “there is nothing to figure out”.

There is nothing to figure out.

“What if I get to the center and can’t get out in time when we need to leave?” The mild panic I had been keeping down reared up a bit more strongly.

There is nothing to figure out.

Step. Step.

I stopped looking ahead and instead focused on where I was. I repeated the mantra “there is nothing to figure out”. Slowly finding my way through the stones – not in any way I was defining but by letting go – hoping and trusting that I’d get there. At each opening where paths diverged I didn’t think about it, I merely chose what felt right.

Moving at my own pace and with my mind no longer occupied by worry or attempts to figure it all out, I could feel myself absorbing and exchanging energy with the circuit. I walked more slowly.

My path changed. I walked in different ways through the stones and found myself at the center of the circle. Keeping my leg straight, I set the cane down and laid down to rest. Grateful that I got there even though my route was not what I had wanted or planned at the outset.

I had more than enough time to find my way, reach the center, rest, and slowly meander back out. I couldn’t take a path I expected because I didn’t know the way at the outset. That didn’t stop me from trying to figure out the future and by sheer force of mind assume I could achieve the outcome. The more I tried to will it and figure out the best route, the deeper and more caught up I became – taking way more steps than I had wanted.

I wanted to take few steps to take care of my leg and also didn’t want to miss anything. I wanted to put the least amount of effort in to keep things easeful for my physical body. Instead the effort moved up into my head not only created a more difficult path through but increasing the effort for both my body and my mind.

Maybe I moved around the field last week it was to move through different energy – to collect it or pass through it. There was nothing to find or figure out. There was no effort of mind willing me to one place or another. Instead I listened and followed until something felt right. Who knows? I don’t actually need to figure out why.

Whether it’s moving through a yoga practice, through a stone circuit, a life, perhaps that’s part of what a journey is – moving through from one place to the next with a balance of effort and ease. Finding stillness. Uncovering ways that are already there. Turning around from a path that ends. Incorporating them all. Letting go of the ones that no longer serve. Seeing the role of not getting what is wanted at one moment in time and moving past it. Finding center. Not having to figure anything out or try to will the course or outcome. There is no wrong path. There are no dead ends. Arriving. Then getting up and continuing on without knowing what the next steps may be and trusting in all that has been and all that will be.