A lot of people pray for an easier life: to hit the lotto, to lose weight while they’re sleeping, or the magic bullet for health and energy. Rarely do you hear people asking for the challenge of becoming a stronger person. But in becoming a stronger person, life naturally becomes easier. Everything in life is perception, and for a strong person, certain problems or goals seem negligible, while the same problem or goal to a weaker person seems insurmountable.

The New Year is symbolic of new beginnings, and as we shake off the holiday hangover, many of us are looking for a new perspective.  The practice of yoga can offer that fresh perspective to those who are searching for it.

Over the last week, I have told my students that if we set an intention to approach things in our lives from a different perspective, we can achieve subtle, though often powerful, transformation in our lives.  By looking at things from a different angle, be it upside down or sideways, we can find a fresh approach.  Sometimes the same old linear model of pushing from Point A to Point B simply does not work, and the creative solution may lie on your yoga mat.

My mother was a Sunday school teacher all the years I was growing up, and she also was an avid gardener.  Each Saturday she liked to sit in her garden and prepare her lesson for the next day.  Whenever she came across a plant in the Bible, she would make a note of it, and often, later that afternoon, we would go in search of it at our local nursery.  Over time, she created what they now call a 'biblical garden,' although she called it her meditation garden.  She added a St. Frances of Assisi statue and a birdbath and feeder and it was quite a lovely, peaceful, and song-filled place.