As part of the LifePower Yoga Mount Laurel challenge, I’m exploring one of the seven axioms of yoga each day and sharing what it means to me. If you’re interested in joining the challenge (and winning some Lululemon swag), you can find all the dets here.

#2 All things are connected

This past Saturday, I was fortunate enough to take intenSati with my teacher, Patricia Moreno. While I always leave class inspired and uplifted, she said something that really stuck with me. In so many words she said,

Whatever challenges you have in your life, you’ve prayed for. Those problems are things you asked for. In asking for confidence, success, love or patience, you’ve called in the situations that would challenge you to develop and cultivate those virtues.

When she said it, I was taken back. I thought about the challenges I was up against in my career and relationship. I thought about how I wanted to do more with my fitness career, but was uncertain what the future held. I thought about how I wanted my relationship to feel different than the continual frustration and drama I experienced. And, more than the challenges themselves, I thought about how I didn’t want to take responsibility for any of that because that isn’t what I asked for. I had a great deal of initial resistance to the idea that I asked for my challenges because I simply wanted the success and fulfillment.

When we ask for something – when we want something – we often have this quid pro quo system for how the universe works. We think asking for the success or love or patience is like ordering something on Amazon and if we want it bad enough, we should find evidence for that desire. We believe if we’re really aligned and our chakras are open and we meditate and are kind and intentional that what we want will arrive for us in a neat little box with a bow.

What my teacher said was powerful, so powerful that it stuck with me for the rest of class and throughout the day. And, rather than simply write it off and blame something in my life for what I was up against, I realized that in wanting success – in wanting the proof that I was enough and that my career as a fitness professional was really going somewhere – I was expecting to find the evidence in having more classes and in my classes always being packed; by having my ideal schedule; by having affiliations and sponsorships with companies; and by leading nationally recognized trainings. Anything less than that was simply evidence to say otherwise. And guess what I found? Instead of endorsements and classes handed to me, I found miscommunication, uncertainty and situations with a great deal of frustration. I realized from what Patricia said, that I was calling in these situations so that I could learn courage, patience, and develop the fortitude, discipline and strength I’d need to step into success.

All things are truly connected and what happens to us is not haphazard or randomized. There’s an interconnected web of cause and effect that happens at a quantum level – way beyond the physical. While we can’t see things on the quantum level per say, the great news is we have a say over what happens. The power truly lies within each and every one of us and the practice is to best show up for our challenges. It’s a really powerful thing to recognize that our thoughts, actions and words are always returned to us and more important than that, how we receive our challenges determines the path we forge forward.

xo