Intention: Keeping internal peace during trying times.
Most of us at one time or another have ventured into a love/hate relationship to social media. While lifting us up from the isolation of the coronavirus, it can also drag us into unintended mire of negative comments and reactions. Through yoga, we learn to cultivate peace within ourselves and let it shine brightly through our actions, words and thoughts. But what to do when we send our positivity out into the social media space, and it is returned with responses which fall far short of compassion or support? An inspiring quote from the Bible's Matthew 10:13 has inspired a simple and direct answer. To grossly paraphrase, the verse advises that when approaching others, send them your peace, but if it gets a negative response, let your peace return to you. In other words, when sending out positivity, and it is returned with malice, anger, or any other negative response to pull us off center, raise our anxiety, or even incite retaliation, we do not have to take in that negativity. We can simply leave their responses either lying away from us, or even land behind us, and return to ourselves the original positive intentions of our actions. In doing this, we conserve emotional physical, mental and spiritual strength for future actions, rather than expending our energy in negativity. Practicing the extension and flexion of our hearts on the yoga mat, empowers us to remain centered and positively charged off the mat. May our practices allow us to spread peace out into the world, as well as return our healing energy back to ourselves.
