Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about beginning again, about looking at where we are, deciding what we want more of, putting down what we no longer need to carry. Remembering that yesterday doesn’t get the final say either.
Then Kat shared her story with us and reminded us that beginning again doesn’t always happen because we choose it. We can decide to return to the mat, change a habit, make room for something we’ve been missing, or take one small step toward feeling more like ourselves again. Sometimes life changes without asking us first, leaving us to figure out how to begin again in a life we never expected to be living.
Kat knows both kinds of beginnings.
Her first Moonbird retreat in Costa Rica was about finding her way back to a yoga practice she had loved and lost somewhere in the busyness of life. When she returned after the death of her husband, Eric, the same place and the community she had found there became part of a very different beginning.
This week, The Practice belongs to Kat. Because her story reminds us that beginning again isn’t always about changing where we’re going. Sometimes it is about finding the grace, the people, and the courage to keep going when the road itself has changed.
Here is Kat’s story, in her own words.
The first time I went with Moonbird Yoga to The Retreat in Costa Rica, I was mostly going for the exercise. I’m a woman of a certain age. I always joke that if you want to know how old I am, you have to cut me in half and count the rings.
I had been practicing yoga since 1992, but I had stopped for quite a while. The pressure of work, other commitments, and so many things getting in the way had pushed yoga aside. I saw the retreat as a chance to start again, to kick-start my yoga practice, so to speak.
I’m so thrilled that I went because I not only reconnected with my love of yoga but also met some absolutely wonderful women. What began as a chance to return to my practice became something way more than I expected.
The next time I was able to join Moonbird at The Retreat was after the death of my beautiful husband, Eric. Such a profound loss. I needed all the love and support I could get, and I got just that from the women attending the yoga retreat.
When most people hear that I had lost my husband, they say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” These women asked me to talk about him. They wanted to see pictures. They gave me a chance to remember Eric and remind myself just how beautiful he was, inside and out.
Without him, I was truly beginning my life again. Having the love and support of this wonderful yoga community helped me kickstart my new life without him.
There are so many times in life when we have to start over. Again and again.
The Costa Rica retreat is an amazing experience, and there are moments from my time there that have stayed with me. I still remember looking at a crystal during one of the yoga classes when the teacher said, “When you look at this crystal, remember to give yourself grace.” Those words have stayed with me. They mean so much when you are hard on yourself, as I often am, and when you are feeling conflicted about so many things.
Sometimes we need a reminder to give ourselves a little grace.
I’m looking forward to going again in November, not only because I’ll get to spend quality time with my wonderful sister, but also because I’ll be reunited with my yoga sisters from Moonbird.
When I think about that first trip now, I went because I wanted to find my way back to yoga. I couldn’t have known then what else I would find there, or how much those relationships would come to mean to me. Life asks us to begin again and again.
I’m grateful to have found a community that reminds me I never have to begin alone.
Kat
