You are Brave

A Mission Moment Share by Humble Haven’s Founder, Suzanne Burns

“I was leading a mindfulness and meditation class the other week to a group of women at a local non-profit. We were having a discussion following meditation and one of the women present shared, “I think you have to be really brave to do mindfulness work.” Her statement was insightful, raw, and true. 

The yoga practice asks you to sit with yourself. Sure, when you show up for a group class you are sitting, moving, breathing alongside others but the practice itself is opening you up to awareness of self and a pretty unavoidable way. 

Finding yoga as an adult meant that I had already experienced and contributed to moments of love, loss, hurt, joy…and all the life offers. 

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (1:15) the Sanskrit word Vairagya is introduced. Vairagya translates to dispassion. In the Sutras it reads, “Dispassion is the conscious master of the control of desire for objects seen, perceived or heard.” To be in practice of vairagya is to be in the practice of letting go. 

Finding yoga as an adult meant that I had already experienced and contributed to moments of love, loss, hurt, joy…and all the life offers. These experiences have all shaped or contributed to my own desires and attachments to material things, ideas, beliefs, and emotions. And, practicing yoga has made me aware of how and when these attachments are actually contributing to my own suffering. A thought or belief that I once held to keep me safe may be antiquated in my present day life and thus…vairagya. 

Sure, taking on something new - a job, a relationship, a hobby, an idea or belief - can be brave, but I think the letting go is even more so.
Yoga is a practice and that goes for every aspect of it. The yoga will carry you through the process of letting go and as you meet yourself again and again on your mat, meet yourself with grace. 

You are brave. “