The view

One of the main reasons I chose this location was… the view from the yoga room.

Multiple huge windows featuring towering trees, adorable shrubs, moss, stones, twisting roots… it’s alive, and you can almost feel the pulse of nature. It’s effortless art, and will change with the seasons, with the time of day, with storms, with wildfire haze. It makes me feel connected to the stability, the fuel that the earth provides. It’ll be a majestic backdrop to a yoga practice. This picture doesn’t do it justice – wait until you see the grandeur of the tree trunks, their lines and character – I find it all breathtaking.

I’ve worked at a few different yoga studios in the past 25 years.

My first place, had no windows but some of those frosted glass cubes that filter a little light in.

The second, had a wonderful glass wall opening out to a walkway/patio where we had some planters – but, we shared that patio with a sushi bar next door. So, it was like practicing yoga in a terrarium where the restaurant goers would sit at their tables and gawk at the people in class. Awkward.

The third, was a hot yoga studio in a downstairs location with some tiny, tiny windows at the very top – and the walls were bright orange. It was stuffy as could be, and I know they’d scrub the walls where black mold would grow. My asthma didn’t love that.

But, when you experience a bunch of what you DON’T want, you get a clearer picture what you DO want. The clearer picture I have in my mind of a goal, the clearer the choices are that I have to make, to achieve them. Our attitudes, our ‘views’, shape our choices… and our choices, shape our world.

Yoga practice helps us notice in our bodies, where we’re tight, where we could use a little more attention and kindness.

An unexpected thing for me, was how yoga made me notice the tightness in my mind, the inflexibility of some rather negative views. I had no idea that I had a choice, between continuing the disparaging comments, or to reframing my inner dialogue with something more supportive. ‘it’s a beautiful day when you realize you don’t have to believe your own thoughts’, says Pema Chodron – another insightful teacher you can find at https://pemachodronfoundation.org.

Just like everyone has filters on their Snapchat, we filter our reality through the lens of what we choose to believe. It’s so easy to forget that life is precious, that we are loved, that there’s hope. I hope, that this studio can be a place where we all remind each other to enjoy… the view.