I teach Forrest Yoga.  I take it very seriously.  During the training, Ana asks us all to take part in her life’s mission – to mend the hoop of the people.  What does that mean?  I’m finding out more and more daily.  We as a people are broken.  Just look at the hate that is the current “Presidential” election cycle and know what I’m talking about.  How do we heal?  How can we help each other and is it naive of me to think I can make a difference?

No, it’s not naive.  It’s optimistic.  I choose to believe that people – at their core – want to lift each other up.  But how do we go about it?  Is there a way that I can heal and you can heal and we can be full, complete humans?  Yes.

We do that by standing.  Next to each other.  Speaking with a friend tonight about our past traumas, the thought hits me….we all have the tendency to go through life thinking we’re alone.  We strive to come back from these traumatic events ON OUR OWN.  We struggle.  We fail.  We get frustrated and wonder how the fuck are we so broken???  Change the “we” to “I” in the above section and know my life.

I’ve learned that my healing isn’t done alone – as much as I think it is.  It’s done because I look to my left and I look to my right and see people – family, friends, teachers, students – standing next to me.  It’s humbling.  But it is also the realization – I’m standing next to them, just as they are to me.

Trauma hits us all.  Regardless of sex, race, orientation, etc.  We are human.  Look left.  Look right.  See the people standing with you.  And know that we all lift each other to up.  It’s an arm around the shoulder support.  So lean on me.  And when I need it, I’ll lean on you.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it.  And I feel fine.”

No, the world isn’t technically ending.  But remember a few years ago when we learned the Mayans couldn’t carry the one?  I’ve thought about this, spoken about it, and written about it previously, and think I fell upon a healing/restoring force.  But before the force, the backstory.

We all may have grand visions of what the world ending looks and feels like to us.  Think meteors, volcanic eruptions, destruction, and all in all – bad shit.  But what if the world ending isn’t that all encompassing??  What if, every day, in a location on the planet, someone feels like their world ends?  When I lost my best friend, I was shocked when the sun came up the next day.  Shocked.  Think of farmers, whose crops for survival and providing for their families are destroyed by drought or floods.  Think of the family gathering around a child when it’s learned there are complications with an unborn.  How can we go on from this?

Love.  Such a corny answer, huh?  But I speak from experience.  And from observing/feeling around me.  When my life and heart shattered, it was my family and friends that gathered around me to not just tell the sun was rising, but to lift me up with it’s warmth.  Communities in agriculture gather around those in need, providing food, clothing, sometimes money to those that need it with the knowledge that while it’s not required, the same would be done in return.  And it’s the family that draws close, under the protective gaze of the lioness mother to just be together; with a dragon watching and feeling from afar.

We carry on sometimes because human nature dictates that we must.  But more importantly because we have people that lift us and encourage us.  Love.  Kindness.  Hope.  These things we could do with more.  Elevate each other, rather than tear down.  Let’s try it and see what kind of loving shift we can accomplish.