soul stretch yoga blog

I get it, lovelies. There is so much doom and gloom and worry and fear out there. Every day, heck, every hour, brings some news about this horrible pandemic that ramps up our anxiety and upset.

Last night, Doug (my husband, also known as The Heckler), decided to stop sitting on the couch watching the latest statistics and bad news and do something.

That something was to host an online AA meeting for a bunch of the guys in his group. Like so many other businesses and companies (Soul Stretch among them), AA meetings are shut down. Too many people at most meetings, too much personal contact, too many unknowns.

It’s bad enough that we can’t go about our usual routines. I need my cycling class, I could use a haircut, and I miss all of you! But for addicts and alcoholics, gathering together to practice the 12 Steps and support each other is critical to their sobriety. Not being able to do so is a danger, too.

Online AA meetings aren’t as fulfilling as standing together, holding hands, and reciting the Our Father. But an online meeting is better than none, and as it turned out, it gave me and Doug some serenity in this scary world.

One of the guys said last night that although he doesn’t like where things are, the AA program has taught him that “acceptance is the key to all our problems, because there is no other way around it right now.”

WOW, lovelies. There it was, the path to staying steady during this pandemic, right under my nose. Acceptance.

Accept the problem.
Accept a higher power.
And then surrender control to the higher power.

Does this sound familiar, yogis? Acceptance is something so many of our blasts touch on. God’s timing. Stewing. Karma.

Acceptance doesn’t mean you are on autopilot, giving up any personal responsibility and taking whatever life throws at you. It means we do what we can to make the situation right, protect ourselves, lift ourselves up. But when there is nowhere else to turn, you accept it and surrender control.

What is it that we think we can control in this pandemic situation? The stock market? The economy? Who might be exposed to COVID-19? Who practices social-distancing? Not hardly. When we figure out, as Doug did in AA, that our Higher Power, not us, is in charge, then we can find bits of serenity in the chaos.

What we can do is accept this is a temporary “new normal” and control our personal actions. Wash our hands. Stay home. Cough in our elbows. Face-time instead of visiting in person. Obey the public safety rules. Be kind.

One of my YTT trainees, Tina Roberts, sent me this. I don’t know the author, but the sentiment is just what we all need.

“And the people stayed home.  And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.  And listened more deeply.  Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.  Some met their shadows.  And the people began to think differently.  And the people healed.  And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.  And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.”

Stay Calm and Stay Home, Lovelies….

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