SOFT ON THE OUTSIDE, STRONG ON THE INSIDE
February 11, 2011. Here on Day 2 of blogging about love for 21 days in 2011 I guess I should explain why I am embracing the Year of the Rabbit. I met someone. And when you meet someone you really want to spend time with in one place then the quiet concept of "Love is Patient" takes on a whole new meaning. My yoga on the mat has served to make me strong enough now so that I want to practice the Yoga of Home and Yoga of Relationship more than ever. To me after the hardest pose of being ourselves then the next hardest yoga pose is making a relationship with another human being that is calm and content. What the ancient yogis call Santosha. Not the New Years Eve fireworks crazy amped up experience but the gentle force of kindness. "Love is Kind" in action. I recently did a cyber interview for Xinalani Resort where I'll be leading a yoga retreat February 26-March 5th. Part of that interview is here:
Xinalani: How did the two of you meet?
Jacob: We met on a train in Italy...yes, it was one of those romantic things you read about in books, and yes, we get asked every trip about it. Perhaps that is one of the incentives for coming on one of our trips?
Silvia: The way Jacob tells the story makes everyone cry every single time. It was exactly as Rumi writes, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” In that moment of meeting I was returning from a Yoga Retreat in Tuscany where I had found much healing and growth. I had ever more fully let go of the barriers to loving myself. I was truly awake and more openhearted than ever before. And that is when Jacob found me.
Through this yogic practice I have been able to get stronger on the inside so I didn't feel like I had to maintain the walls and barriers up on the outside. As a result I got softer on the outside. In that softness love felt more welcomed. Although I hesitate I feel I should caution you a bit here: When you arrive at that place where you are willing to be open to grace and be more gentle outwardly you will get hurt. Some will take advantage of you. You might wonder so how many times has my heart been broken? Well, more than most. But would I trade this letting go of barriers to have it any other way? No I would not. Once you start the practice of yoga the process takes over and what you thought was important before evolves to a whole new level. You put your energy on creating and deepening the poses of your life and away from holding back or closing off. It is in that receptivity that the yoga of relationship love will find you as it did me. So today sweat off the old hardness, knock down the walls and welcome LOVE! Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia
*Join me on a yoga retreat www.alchemytours.com