Your yoga mat is a stage

Every morning, the curtains part on another act of life’s sacred theater. We step into our roles as professionals, parents, and partners, and slide the mask of the part that we are playing over the multidimensional chaos that swirls within.

There is nothing wrong with playing a role - being an actor can be an expression of joyful, artistic play. The tragedy is to forget that we are playing a role - and to become over-identified with any one in particular.

Playing only one role in life is like practicing only one yoga pose. You might be great at it - but it only stretches and strengthens a certain muscle group, when there are so many others to experience.

When I become over-identified with any of my roles, like professional, yoga teacher, friend, student, or daughter, they begin to feel brittle, even rigid. Like my consciousness is getting a muscle cramp from holding the pose for too long, instead of allowing a more natural fluidity between these expressions of my being to occur.

The gift of the well-practiced yogi is the ability to witness all of the roles that they are playing, and to simultaneously hold the wisdom that their truest, authentic self is the consciousness behind all of the characters.

We are not any one role, just like we are not any one pose. As yogis, we are the creative potential to be all roles, and all poses.