Find the other parts of our story in our past newsletters.
10 Years of Gratitude
Over the years I've graduated more than 100 teachers, met so many more along the way, and had teachers visit us to teach as well. Many of our own have scattered to other places, and I've gotten to visit some of them in beautiful spots since, Carmel, Peru, the mountains of Colorado. A good number stayed close too, still part of this community today. I've learned something from every person who walked through that door, the ones who stayed and the ones who didn't. We're all different, and we have plenty in common too, and both of those things have taught me just as much as any pose ever has. We've cried in this room, grieved in this room, celebrated in this room, held space for each other in this room, and that's the whole point of the practice. I've had the privilege of a room full, and sometimes just the one, and either way I've learned as much from my students as they've learned from me.
What I feel most, looking back over these ten years, is gratitude. We need yoga. You need us, even when the world outside these walls gets hard, even when the world inside you gets hard too. Maybe especially then. That's when the practice matters most, meeting whatever comes with compassion instead of fighting it. The hard seasons rarely feel like gifts while you're standing inside them. They feel like unwanted guests. But so often, given enough time, they turn out to be gifts we just couldn't see yet.
A decade of Abilene Yoga House. Fifteen years of teaching. It all started with an empty living room, one class a week, and a whole lot of breath, and I am endlessly grateful for every single person who walked through that door with me.
Keep your hope machine running. And thank you, truly, for keeping this hope machine running right alongside me.
See you on August 22nd to celebrate the decade of AYH!
