RESILIENCE

There is so much to say that I don’t even know where to begin and I also want to keep this short as I know most of you have been flooded with emails and newsletters from pretty much everyone.

It’s been a whirlwind of events that all of us had to face from one day to the other.
For me, it started with my trip to France to teach a teacher training being canceled (after having waited 2 years to be able to travel to my country again), then the logistics of transfering all my teachings online, then my father being diagnosed with Covid-19 and hospitalized for 2 weeks in France (he’s now feeling like himself again, thank God!), then the permanent closure of my beloved Yogaworks studios in the NY region after working for them for the past 14 years. Oh and I forgot to mention the water damage we had in our apartement in the city while we were away… All of this within 4 weeks.

I’m not sharing this with you to get your support and empathy, I’m sharing this with you because I know that despite these sudden events, I’m still feeling extremely lucky as many people have suffered way more than I did during this health crisis and I don’t want to lose sight of this as it is very easy to forget that people are suffering when things are okay for us or becoming okay again. 
I’m also sharing this because it made me think A LOT about the impermanence of all things.
This concept is one of the pillars of the philosophy of yoga. Everything is changing all the time and nothing is here to last forever. According to the Yoga Sutras, we tend to attach ourselves too much to people, to things, to situations, to our body…and when they start to change or they disappear, it creates suffering.
The shutdown of the country and pretty much the whole world has highligthed that concept in huge ways. From one day to the other, everything stopped and we were asked to stay home. Even though this situation brought a lot of pain and discomfort to many, I think it realy taught us and is still teaching us how to surrender to things we have no control over and to detach ourselves from them. 
These are gigantic lessons that are not easy to digest but I believe they will help us to create a shift in our cousciouness and become more mindful people.

Another thing that kept coming to mind is that dichotomy between the fact that us, human beings, generally dislike changes; I’m not talking about small changes in our daily routine but big life altering changes and especially when these changes are not our decision; and at the same time we, human beings, are extremely skillful at adapting to changes.
I feel the same way.
When I lost my job at Yogaworks, I was, first of all, so saddened and so shocked by the news that I could barely grasp it, but I was also afraid of the future. What is going to happen next, what if I don’t find another place to teach at, what if I won’t be able to teach another teacher training again, what is going to happen to my health insurance…?
While all of these were valid questions, I didn’t let in my mind the space for opportunities that could arise from that loss. I’m far from having figured out how things will look like when life comes back to normal but I’m also seeing some opportunities that I never thought of. For instance, I started to teach an online yoga class in French which is going well and allows me to connect with students despite the distance. It is a beautiful experience and something I would not have done if I was still teaching in person.

Resilience is the ability to adapt in the face of adversity.
I think we all did that very well and I’m actually very impressed by how well and how quickly people adapted: from my older students figuring out Zoom to take classes, people working from home while managing their children’s studies, restaurants offering food to hospital workers, people started their own gardens, friends playing live music for their neighbors in NYC, younger people grocery shopping for elders… The list is long and this is just a tiny illustration of how strong and resilient we are.
That makes me extremely hopeful for the future.

As always, thank you for reading.
Namaste,