I’m sitting here on the final day of 2022, anticipating the new year to come and reflecting on my life as another year is about to pass. In July of the upcoming year, I will turn 65. I will officially become a senior citizen and enter my golden years. But my hair is already gray and rings a bald crown that hasn’t grown anything other than a few wisps of peach fuzz in decades. I no longer have the strength and stamina of my youth. So I don’t expect many changes from this momentous birthday aside from maybe receiving a few senior discounts… oh, and the continuing dimming of my eyesight. Back in 1994, I was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition that affects my retinas and may eventually result in total blindness. This year I transitioned from “low vision” to “legally blind”. So as poor as my vision is today, it is better than it will ever be again. This is one of those facts that can really play on one’s mind. When I initially received this news back in my mid-thirties I went into a deep depression that lasted for six months. Fear and hopelessness took over and my mind went into a state of despair that I couldn’t shake. But when my optimism finally returned I realized that I had a lot of life yet to live and if I was going to enjoy any of it I’d have to not dwell on my infirmity but rather embrace the positivity of my life. And so over the years, I’ve employed several strategies. I’ve thrown myself into work and into relationships to help mask my pain. I’ve used alcohol and other substances to help me forget. But these are temporary fixes at best. I needed something different, more powerful, more enduring but what? I didn’t know.
By the Spring of 2016, I was doing pretty well for myself. I had a successful career as an IT consultant. I’d met and married the most wonderful woman I’d ever known. Her name is Sue and she is the love of my life. I had hobbies and friends and was just a few months from paying off my mortgage. But I was still looking for the answer. I needed a way to sustain my happiness. Physically, I was experiencing some of the symptoms of aging. My body had become stiff and sometimes painful due to many years of sedentary work, a less-than-healthy diet, and decreased motivation to engage in the high-intensity workouts of my younger years. I shared these observations with my wife and mentioned that I needed to find a way to gain some more flexibility and ease of movement. Sue told me that she’d recently met a woman who ran the yoga studio in town and it was less than a mile from our home. We discussed it for a bit and it sounded like just what I needed so we decided to try a class. I had no idea what yoga was. I’d imagined it to be a bunch of young physically fit women sitting on mats chanting and twisting themselves into pretzel-like shapes. Well, I wasn’t all wrong, there ARE mats involved! But I was really scared. I felt that the people in a yoga studio would take one look at me, think, what is HE doing here, he’s not one of us, and send me away. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was greeted warmly. Introduced to a most wonderful instructor and encouraged to enjoy the practice. What, no interrogation, no accusation, no judgment, no banishment, something was very different here. That first class was really nice, it was called Yoga Calm. Most of the poses were easy to perform and our instructor emphasized not going too far. She told us to accept our limitations and not compare ourselves with others. All this sounded wonderful and felt really good. After the class, I walked out with a renewed spark of optimism and a bit more ease in my movements. Yes, I’d tapped into something and I was eager to dig deeper.
In the succeeding weeks and months, I’d become a regular at the yoga studio. I was taking several classes each week and eventually began attending a bi-weekly guided meditation led by the studio’s owner. This class had a profound effect on me. I slowly began to realize that what I’d been searching for wasn’t available in a box. didn’t come from a store and couldn’t be bestowed by another person. The answer was within me and all I had to do was access it. Learning how to meditate gave me the tools and techniques I needed. I learned about mindfulness, the state where our mind is focused and undistracted. This is the space where we can find calmness and peace. It’s also where we can gain insight and make real, profound changes in our thinking. I practiced meditation daily and benefitted enormously from it. I began looking further, on my own discovering new teachers with new perspectives, new techniques, and new possibilities. And along the way, my long-dormant spirituality had been re-awakened. I owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to the woman who led those guided meditations. She taught me so much and was the catalyst for so many positive changes within me. Her most important teaching was that everything we need is already within us. We just need to bring it forward. In other words, she taught me how to love myself. Sadly, the two of us have lost contact but I will always cherish the memory of her classes and will forever hold her in a prominent place in my heart.
In 2018, two significant milestones happened in my life. In March of that year, my eyesight had deteriorated to the point where I could no longer work. I also finally stopped driving which I should have done long before but couldn’t do and still keep my job. Surprisingly to me, this change reduced the level of stress I’d been feeling down to almost zero. This also led to my meditation practice becoming more sporadic. It seemed I was no longer desperate for peace of mind. Suddenly I was in a much calmer place. I still felt great after a good dose of mindfulness but I no longer felt the urgency. I was far less frequently stuck in cycles of negative thinking. Things were going well for me mentally and it didn’t seem to matter if I missed a day or two. I could still feel self-love when I needed it. But because I now had more free time I began to take short breaks throughout my day to just sit in calmness, allow my thoughts slow and just breathe. This has become my regular meditative practice and unless I have a specific need or objective which may dictate a different method, this is my go-to method of engaging with my mind.
The second significant event of 2018 occurred in August when I became a certified yoga instructor. This fact would have been inconceivable two years earlier but because of how good I was now feeling, physically, mentally, and spiritually, I threw myself into the training program and it was an amazing experience. I was originally convinced to join the training by my meditation teacher, who was also one of the two main instructors of the program. She led the more conceptual and spiritual modules while her partner, a woman named Megan taught us the more hands-on aspects of teaching yoga. I adored Meg’s easygoing style and was inspired by her ability. Megan is one badass yogi! I took an immediate liking to her and to this day I still come to her class to practice. I’m proud to say that she’s become a dear friend of mine. But I didn’t become a yoga teacher to teach yoga ironically. No, that wasn’t what my heart wanted to pursue. No, I just wanted to spend time around these warm, caring, wonderful friends, because it made me feel so good. And I can’t think of a better definition of self-love than prioritizing the things that make me feel good!
Once I became a teacher, I began leading a guided meditation class. I was immersing myself in various practices. Reading articles, listening to audiobooks, and watching videos from various renounced yogis, monks, and other experts. I would practice these methods and I would share the ones that I felt most connected to with my students. It was a very good point in my life but nothing lasts forever. In March of 2020, this phase of my life ended as the covid-19 pandemic emerged.
When the pandemic subsided and businesses re-opened I was adrift. For some reason, I stopped doing yoga and my meditation practice slowed as well. Naturally, much of the good feelings I’d been cultivating with these practices had ceased as well. It was time to start again. Yes, I was a couple of years older, a few pounds heavier and my vision had decreased further. But this time I knew what I needed to do. And I’d found a new yoga studio! My teacher, Megan was now holding classes at a facility called F.L.O.W. which was opened by a woman named Jamie. Jamie, it turns out, was the person who greeted me so warmly six years earlier, when I was so scared as I walked into that yoga studio for the very first time. She had left that studio to blossom. Armed with her graduate degree Jamie worked as a therapist and then put on her entrepreneurial hat and started her own wellness company. She now runs a thriving therapy practice, employs dozens of highly skilled practitioners, and oversees the warm and intimate yoga studio where I have rekindled my practice. The best part is, Jamie has become my friend as well! The more I’m around people like her and Meg, the more love I feel in my heart. I can’t think of a more virtuous cycle.
Thank you for indulging me as I write so much about myself. This month’s theme is self-love, which is critical to all of our growth and healing. One of my favorite meditations is called Metta in Sanskrit which translates to Loving Kindness in English. It begins with generating feelings of love, friendship, and goodwill within our hearts. We bathe our minds in this love until we feel it deep in our hearts. We then mentally share this love by offering kind wishes in a number of rounds, first to those closest to us, then to friends and acquaintances, than to folks we know but don’t have strong feelings for, then to people we have difficult relationships with, and finally to everyone in the world. This meditation always leaves me in a warm, happy place and is the best way I’ve found to generate self-love. I want to share a video from one of my favorite meditation teachers, a man named Jack Kornfield. He is a co-founder of the renowned Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts. In this recording, Jack explains and leads the listener through his version of a Loving Kindness meditation. Please enjoy it and until next month my friends, I wish you peace in your being, ease in your mind, and love in your heart.
John teaches at F.L.O.W. in Abington, PA. Yin Yoga weekly and a Beginner’s Yoga Workshop once a month. For more information please visit: https://flowwellnesscenter.org/class-descriptions