Yoga and Relationships

"If you want to know if you are improving at yoga, look at your relationships" Krishnamacharya (Grandfather of Yoga)

My Relationships

People often ask if my family do yoga. It's a different answer to what most people expect. They don't do an hour class every week, that's for sure. When the kids were younger I often used them as test dummies to plan kids yoga classes. In fact it goes back further than that. When Talahasee, my now 15 year old son, was 6 months old I would put him in his rocker and run through my class plans with him. He would watch as I taught him my adult class before I went out and taught it to actual adults. I'm not sure how much actually stuck with him but when he was in primary school I would sometimes catch him doing sun salutes or shoulder stands in his room. Now he's tall and stiff as a board and recently asked Scott, my hubby, if he knew any stretches he could do. :)

As for Alabama, my now 13 year old daughter, she would often tag along with me. I brought her into classes where I needed kids to behave and she new the moves so they would follow along. She even went with me to PLC to teach the teens regularly. Now she will only jump into a yin class. WAYYY to tired to do anything else. In fact, Scott only comes to Yin with Live Music - mainly for Bek's amazing music. :)

Guessing this was around 2014.

Yoga In The Home

All that being said, I am simply talking about an asana (movement) classes. Over the last few decades it is IMPOSSIBLE for yoga to have not infiltrated our home. When I clean the house I burn incense. If it's not me doing it, it's one of the kids. We use it to clear the energy. When we buy any used furniture it is saged/incensed before it comes in the door.

When Alabama was little and being crazy and we had reached our parenting threshold, Scott would ask me to drum over him. You would have experienced my medicine drum if you've been with me long enough or at the End of Year Resets on 31 Dec.

During full moons we light the fire pit burn from our burn box. The burn box is a box out in the open with a pen and small squares of paper that everyone uses to write down the crap they want to release from the last month. We then burn it. Again you would have had a taste of this at the End of Year Resets. It came from our home practice.

I have mats rolled up in almost every corner of my house and it's not uncommon to see me stop what I'm doing and roll one out if I get an idea. This could be while I'm cooking dinner, watching tv, reading a book or writing a newsletter (or blog!) I try to contain it if my family are talking to me and give them my full attention. Anything else is fair game. In fact Scott has suggested several times that we get rid of the living room furniture so there is more play space. But alas, not all of our visitors are easy floor sitters.

I could probably elaborate on this section for far longer than you have time to read, but these were the first things to pop into my head.

Here is proof of the pudding. This was taken in 2022 when I was recording videos for the video library. Alabama must have tagged along with me to the studio. We obviously started playing as soon as the camera rolled.

Alabama and I playing at the studio in 2022

So there you go. Yoga shows up in relationships. It's a magical thing to share as we all know how good it feels afterwards. It may start as a physical practice but before you know it you are showing patience in traffic, compassion in conversations and taking breaths before reacting.

What home wouldn't benefit from those qualities?

In love and yoga,

Laurin