#awakenings

#awakenings

Gossiping about someone else gave me a fleeting escape, since it allowed me to shift my focus to someone else's behavior. Every time I did it, I felt a sense of guilt and shame after.

Tight or weak shoulders affect not only our functioning in daily life, but our yoga practice. Poor posture and tight shoulders limit our muscles' freedom of movement.

Devon Hase states, 'People are trying desperately to fix, optimize, or escape their way out of relationship difficulty - and suffering more for the effort. Social media has made this worse! We're surrounded by images of perfect partnerships while quietly drowning in our own ordinary struggles.' This highlights the pressure couples feel in the age of social media.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. It was bracing language for an 8-year-old. Not only was I unclean, but even my best attempt at goodness was filthy.

If you are exhausted and yearn to rest, like nearly everyone I know, you may be interested in what's arguably the most radical wellness trend of 2026 - an ancient practice called "dark retreat." This powerful experience, touted by celebrities as the latest way to achieve self-realisation and peace, involves no drugs (unlike, say, ayahuasca), no intense physical work, and no strict diet - just staying in absolute darkness in a comfortable room for 24 hours a day, for several days.

Popular definitions of yoga often include terms such as balance, harmony, health, and peace. While these qualities are certainly desirable, and must be created before one can enter the state of fixity, or yoga, they are not included in the definition Patanjali offers us in his Yoga Sutras, the classic second-century B.C. exposition generally accepted as the bible of yoga.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~Lao Tzu For many years, I was deeply involved in spiritual communities-satsangs, meditation centers, ashrams, and groups focused on positivity, service, and personal growth. These places gave me comfort, community, and a sense of purpose. But they also shaped something inside me that I didn't fully recognize until much later: I had built my self-worth around being a "good person."