Universal Love

Love yourself with all your might. Leave no part of you out. Dark and light. You are perfection. Uniquely you!

There is nobody quite like you. All of your mismatched parts and your nooks and crannies are a part of your personal design. It's your birthright to be you. To accept and love all the little bits of yourself is an effort of integration and the art of self-love. It's important to unify all aspects of YOU. Yoga means union. Union with the self teaches us relationship with the other. When I am present and patient with myself, when I honor myself and pay attention, I find that my skills with others improve. When someone comes to me and asks for my attention, I have taken to listening as if it is a cast-out aspect of my own being that is making this request. If I want my relationships to improve, I must be whole and complete from within. Loving myself is a version of loving the world, for I am a child of God just like you.

I have also experienced that sense of Universal Love when I put myself into a class amongst others. Losing myself in the group is a form of participating in oneness. For a moment, I am part of a collective entity. This can give us an amazing experience of unity and non-separation.

My favorite aspect of teaching is that I get to be in the presence of people at their best: when they are loving themselves. The word yoga means to yoke, or to bring together, and it is a time to commune with the Self and to dwell in the the presence of personal light and power. Being in a room with others with likeminded purpose of self-love is extraordinary. Even when I am feeling most alone, I know that when I am in a group class, I can feel connected. This reminds me that I am never alone, and allows me to open up to love no matter what state my relationships are in.

Try, this month, to immerse yourself in the feeling of universal love by joining a class. It can be any kind, a spinning class, hot yoga or CrossFit. Find your place, and reside in that energy of light and love emanating from each individual to illuminate the state of Universal Love which is available at any time to anyone.