Does the practice of Yoga bring Peace?

This time has been challenging, scary, emotional and yet calming.   It has brought me deeper into a place of questioning when it comes to the work I do and the people I serve through the powerful teachings and practices of yoga. 

I have questioned the Yoga Industry and what is being offered.  Is it really as simple as asking people to come to their mat and breathe?

I wonder if Yoga is  just like most industries in America driven by what sells and what makes money? 

Has authenticity and integrity just become something that we talk about for “likes” but never seems to exist? Is being a Yoga Teacher a sustainable career, one in which growth and opportunity exists?   

Would people pay for Yoga if it was more meditation rather than movement?  Would people invest in courses that require them to be still, to notice themselves rather than to work their way into looking a certain way in a pose.

With more time to be by myself, I have a made a choice to deepen my meditation practice and step back from the physical practice. 

What I have learned with absolute certainty is that yoga is so much more than a series of poses or a good workout.   Yes energy is moving out of the body and it may make the physical container we have right now look a certain way, but that becomes meaningless if we cannot be alone with ourselves in peace when we move off the mat. 

Alone with ourselves in peace and not lonely. 

This becomes a harder sell and simply not as “sexy”, because who really wants to be alone? 

How has our culture defined loneliness and being alone?  What are the images and ideas that come into your mind when you hear these words?

Every time I sit down, close my eyes and tune in to my breath, I am more aware.  I am aware of my thoughts moving for one thing to next.  I am aware that I have control and I am aware of my center. 

I have spent so much time reading, studying, and following individuals who talk about trusting yourself; returning to your intuition.   I have spent day after day showing up on my mat to move my body, and also realizing once I walked off the mat the same patterns continued to show up. 

They go away for a few moments when I am connecting to the movements, but I leave returning to the clutter and disconnection that exists.

Which makes me think is this time right now just like that?

A moment in which we observe the busy, realize it is not working; and then return to it once again out of comfort and ease. 

Is being busy, excessive movement, more information just ways of taking us further away from ourselves and what we already know?  A way to question and doubt ourselves and look for someone else to fix us.

As much as I want a quick answer to many things in my life, there is no quick answer and ultimate there is no answer at all.

The answer that someone else or something else can provide may feel good in the moment but the deeper questioning still remains.  

The constant search and comparison to what someone else is doing or saying is only bringing me further away from the truth inside me. 

What I have learned through all of this and through the practice of meditation is just that it is a practice, which  means I am not perfect. I am not all of a sudden doing magical things or manifesting all my dreams. I am not changing my life rapidly in 2 or 3 months time. 

Again that is what sells so that is what we see.  

I guess when this is all over I am not looking to learn a lesson or be a brand new person or to have some big idea. 

I am simply looking for peace.

Which ironically was present all along in every moment,  all I had to do was be still enough to experience it.