Letting joy be enough

Photo by Alejandro Alvarez on Unsplash

There’s a lady in my yoga class, she must be eighty years old. She bends and stretches and does

all the different dog positions enthusiastically, albeit with some difficulty. She must be the sunniest person I’ve ever met at the gym - or anywhere else for that matter. She greets anyone coming through the door with a genuine smile and loud “hello.” She gleefully comments on how well this person does their pose, or how limber that other person is. I don’t know her beyond those short interactions before and after class, but her high spirits and positivity have left their mark.

It can be so easy to get bogged down with our day to day, with endless to-do lists to check off, emails to send out, errands to run. So easy to get caught up in all that we wish we were doing, all that we wish we could achieve. So easy to find you haven’t laughed properly in weeks. Meeting someone like the yoga lady makes me wonder: what do I have to do to get to eighty with such energy and zest for life? What do I have to do to find that today?

For her, yoga is not about showing off her marvelous flexibility or the latest in athletic wear, it’s probably not about doing a perfect crow pose or getting muscular abs either. She shows up, moves her body, greets some people, and that is enough. And she keeps coming back, finding joy every time she does. There’s something there… about letting go of our expectations. Letting go of all the clutter we surround ourselves with, physically and mentally. Letting go of all the weight we put on our choices, the steps we take, and where we’re headed. We all have places we have to go to and obligations we must fulfill, but if we are able to show up, move our bodies, greet some people, and find some joy in each step, maybe that can be enough.

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