Your Presence Here Shapes Your Presence Everywhere

This morning I picked a healing card from Elena’s cards as I do every morning. However today I didn’t like the one I chose. As I looked at it, I thought I’ve picked this one recently, it must be a mistake, I don’t have anything to learn about this right now. I wanted a new card. Annoyed, I put it back into the pack and then I realised; I still had a lesson to learn from this card. Something told me to write about it and so here I am.

The card stated “Your presence here shapes your presence everywhere” with a picture of Elena in a couple of yoga poses. Yes I get it, I thought; however I behave on my mat is how I behave in life. And then the thought occurred to me that I needed to go deeper than this superficial explanation. How am I behaving off my mat? Do I give the same amount of commitment, attention, care and love to every part of my life as I do to my yoga practice? Do I offer the same amount of love to everyone on my path? Do I leave them feeling lighter, brighter and more at ease in my presence? And here I had my answer. Because it’s easy to be present on my mat, it’s easy for me to commit to my practice, to love yoga and everything it shows me. But it’s not so easy to be this present to everything in my life, to offer the same amount of love, compassion and commitment to my family, to not judge people for the choices they make, to not alienate people because they don’t necessarily follow my philosophy in life.

Without being mean to myself, I realise I need to pay more attention to my presence off the mat, my presence with those closest to me because I can take their presence for granted. My presence to those who upset me because in that moment I can forget myself and remove my presence from them altogether instead of recognising that the hurt or upset I feel is something that I can learn from. My presence when I feel threatened so that I soften instead of intimidating the person who I feel threatened by. My presence when I am tired, emotional, overworked or stressed and recognise that in these times I need to remove myself from life for a time so that I can offer my light again when I am ready.

It’s all very well having a perfect yoga practice on the mat but it means nothing if it is not being reflected in everyday life, because yoga is everyday life, it isn’t just time on the mat but it’s every minute of every hour of every day. Moment by moment we shape our presence, I’m choosing to be more mindful as to how I shape mine, with even more love, compassion and kindness. At the end of the day I want my presence to be one of love.