2021: A Year-end Message From Brandt

Friends in Yoga,

As we reflect on 2021, there are so many lenses we could look through. The pandemic lens, the social justice lens, the lens of our global and personal community, personal needs and responsibilities, etc.

I’m sure you, like myself, have wrestled with all of your different roles and perspectives over the past year. These different lenses can sometimes support and sometimes conflict with each other. This is part of what makes us human. Our ability to have so many thoughts and perspectives at the same time. To be in harmony and conflict with ourselves and still be an integrated whole. This is yoga in a nutshell. Teachings on how to expand awareness and integrate all the parts of ourselves so that we may know ourselves more fully.

To do this well, we must follow our dharma. Dharma is our own unique personal path that leads us to the knowledge of ourselves that we seek.

“It is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma. But competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity.”
-Bhagavad Gita

If you are reading this you have made some very specific choices this year in regard to your dharma. You have chosen to pursue or continue to pursue a yoga therapy education amid all the other inputs and filters. Maybe you are looking at changing how you dedicate your time, helping others find health and contentment.

I’ve had the privilege this year of watching students in their practicum do just that. Using their newly acquired skills to work with mental health conditions, trauma, grief, pain—all with great success. In the Foundations Program, students and graduates are also working in the field, living their dharma by developing programs for public school districts, helping patients and families in hospitals, helping children with scoliosis, sharing yoga with veterans suffering from PTSD, and the list goes on and on…

When we try to figure out what our dharma is there is an element that helps guide us. It is our conscience. Not what we believe to be important or right but rather what feels most important for us to contribute at this time.

As aspiring and working yoga therapists, we understand the importance of knowing oneself. Healing can happen when we have the tools to fully experience ourselves and move toward integration, health, and contentment. We have chosen to share these tools with others. To study, practice, and know the teachings in a way that can help more people move away from suffering.

This is what I see. Hundreds of us all over the world living our dharma to the best of our ability. In service of those who wish to know themselves better and find the healing that is their birthright. Individually and together we make an enormous difference in people’s lives. As a school, we have influenced thousands of positive outcomes this year. And this only gains momentum as each one of us does our part to share the wisdom of yoga therapy.

So on the eve of a New Year, I raise my cup of chai and say “Jai Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapists!” May living your dharma bring peace and health to those whose lives you touch. And may all beings be free and happy.

Blessings to you all,
Brandt