We all know and have felt love. We love our family, friends, partners, pets and beyond. Books, songs, poems, seminars, workshops, everywhere we turn, espouses the topic of the heart. But what is love exactly? Is it a physical feeling, a spiritual discipline, a lifestyle, a philosophy, a science? Well, maybe all of the above, but one thing rings true, love begins from within. “You can open your heart more freely to others when you feel love for yourself. Recognizing that no one else can complete us actually enhances our capacity to love and receive love from others,” writes Sharon Salzberg in Real Love. “It’s in that process of really listening, really looking at somebody, really being there, that the possibility of genuine connection, and then real love can grow.”
Then you may ask, what does yoga have to do with love? Isn’t yoga bending into shapes, breathing heavily, and chanting? For those of you in the know, these are merely seeds one plants to grow and open the heart to self love. The greatest love story you may ever come to know is the love you have with yourself… and yoga. A regular practice can pave the way to mindfulness and awareness of yourself. This brings us to a much deeper level and in turn we are able to give love to others more freely and richly.
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