“If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.”

- W. Clement Stone

100

Today, I write my 100th blog/newsletter. It coincides with Carer’s Week (June 10-14th), which inspired the first blog I wrote three years ago during the very same week in June 2021. Here it is: https://blog.yogamatters.com/how-yoga-helped-me-a-carers-story/

Yoga was my lifeline once. In that blog, I was compelled to share how practice and community offered solace, meaning, and strength through one of the most difficult times of my life.

It was also the first time I realised first-hand that the wisdom of yoga offered me something more significant than physical health—it opened doors to peace and potential, allowing me to connect deeper to myself, others and the grace of the world. I believe we all deserve to uncover this gift within.

Yoga continues to lend lifelines, acute and chronic. I could be less dramatic than to say it saves lives (although I’m sure it also does). But yoga guides, investigates, and, most importantly, affirms the entirety of life, both in suffering and joy.

Why the Blog?

When I became a yoga teacher, I struggled to know how best to share the wealth of what yoga could be beyond the postural movement I tend to gravitate to on the mat. Blogging, essentially a kind of public journalling, has inadvertently become one way to do that. Putting thoughts to paper has amplified my gratitude for this practice and the chance to share it.

I’m no writer, and I never planned to start a blog. Curiously, however, three years later, I find myself still writing to you every week.

When I started, I wondered how it would go. Would I write anything of interest to anybody? Would I run out of things to say? Should I write about medicine, yoga, or simply life? Even as I blog about blogging this week (!), I’m contemplating which learning to go to next weekend, a medical symposium on the spine or a yoga event, 'Writing from the heart: connecting to your authentic voice’. (They fall on the same day. Any opinions on which to attend? 😌)

The problem seems to have been that I’ve had far too much to say! For all of life is an inspiration. What I thought were separate offerings—yoga and medicine—appear all at once intricately entwined, with the yogic lens giving me a new way of looking that I cannot unsee. What began as an experiment in articulating this has morphed into a weekly discipline of stopping, reflecting, and connecting.

A Piece of Me

I sometimes wonder how I started writing so ardently in a weekly message whose simple intention was to remind you...Ahem, there’s a yoga class happening.

Can I tell you a secret? Writing to you is just a bit terrifying. It’s a bit like teaching is scary, too. It involves putting a piece of me out there for anyone to tear apart, like or dislike. It’s an insight into my heart and mind. But, I think it’s nice, only fair, maybe even important, to know a little about the person who teaches you this thing called yoga and why she is so crazy mad about it.

I don't know how long I’ll continue writing. In truth, it's your interest, open-mindedness, and generous feedback that have kept me accountable and motivated to keep writing about relevant and random topics these past years.

Thank you for letting me express my mind and share my life. You have allowed me—and I hope you, dear reader—to stop, reflect, and connect beyond the mat.

Let’s practice.