"Love Yourself"

I almost never do this, but today I wanted to share what I wrote in the daily column I write for my membership. I spent so many Valentine's Days alone and wishing for someone or something to make me feel complete. I know so well how that longing feels. Here's the lesson I learned about that and that has fueled my yoga practice for more than 20 years now.

"LOVE YOURSELF"

These two simple words, for me, express the ultimate reason I practice and teach yoga.

My relationship with myself was not always positive, kind or loving.

But when I discovered, more than 20 years ago, that asana practice could not only be a way to move and awaken consciousness in my body but was also a field for cultivating a more loving relationship with myself well, that was the game-changer that turned asana from merely an interesting physical and mental pursiuit and made it into a major practice of my sadhana.

For me, yoga has been and always will be a path toward self love. This is the core of what I want to share with my students and what I hope for them to experience in their practice. That through yoga, they may too discover that they are worthy of the highest love and nothing less.

I want them to know that love doesn't come from a relationship or anything outside oneself. It's found, nurtured and expanded WITHIN oneself. That we, each of us, are the SOURCE of the love we seek.