Collective Healing

November has always been a season of shifts. With the time change, the upcoming election, and life's uncertainties unsettling our nervous systems, I'm deeply grateful for the steady grounding of my inner practice.

Holding space for the highest good. The intention of practice in the context of the community. At Yoga Among Friends, our mission is to create a space where the community can flourish in kindness and feel a deep sense of belonging.

As a Sangha, we offer whatever we can to bring attention to how we can help ease the fear and tensions of suffering for each other. To create a safe environment where the air we breathe, the water we drink, the trees, and all of nature in the animal kingdom are nourished with the element of peace. We have to live deeply with each moment that is given to us.

The world now needs us to go inward, be mindful, and choose to extend the energy of genuine compassion. We must recognize that love alone is not enough; we must go deeper into understanding and accepting that everyone perceives life through their own lens. Each of us has unique experiences, even within the same family. This practice involves examining our own judgments and cultivating self-acceptance for the shadows within us.

Yoga is neither a self-help industry nor a form of psychoanalysis; it offers a gateway to self-awareness. It helps us recognize our struggles to see clearly, the anger that stems from our survival fears, and the importance of pausing and listening to choose a mindful response. Deep listening can be exhausting when our minds are filled with the noise of outer chaos.

Yoga Among Friends’ Teachers Weekend Retreat

At Yoga Among Friends, we aim to create a safe space for true relaxation—a place to set aside the ego’s drive to fix and instead cultivate a deep sense of ease and nourish genuine presence. In this community, we offer an inner retreat from the chaotic outer distractions. To feel the support of a community has been our full mission since opening in 1998.

Today, we move forward with renewed energy from our inspiring teachers, who are committed to providing enriching workshops and classes that practice these tools for healing collective hearts. In this season of darkness, we remain a beacon of light, raising the vibration for all.

In love and light,

Laura Jane

Renewing and Restoring

April comes around too quickly. How can another year have passed, and now we are completing 26 years? I am not sure how a practice of commitment started, but as I move forward this month and begin another lap around the sun, I am asking for help. The community needs students and teachers to sustain the foundation of these teachings. Cultivating when the world is hurting has been difficult, and attention to daily living has become challenging.

I know that I need to take a rest and restore. As much as I adore creating venues for teachings, travel, and training, I long to step back and soak in the experience of being present. I am taking a sabbatical this month and letting my identity as a teacher, business owner, mother, and wife not be my daily commitment. Sometimes, I feel getting our new puppy this past summer pushed me over to a new level of surrender. I want to step back, be invisible, and be the observer. As the witness, I long to soak in the gifts of the past 26 years.

I am going to embark on my adventure to Japan. The month of April will be the month I unplug from my daily duties, and I can be a tourist and follow whoever is holding the flag! Let someone take over the details. I will follow wherever and whatever as I explore the country without having to organize anything. I am fortunate and strong enough to travel in a time of chaos and despair. I am thankful for this gift as I approach 70.

The last time I traveled for this long was to complete my internship in yoga therapy in Chennai, India. I spent a month there in 2011 and 2012. The community supported this endeavor, and I was able to enjoy the last 12 years enjoying my role as a yoga therapist, offering the tools of yoga one-on-one. I’m grateful for the work, and now I am giving myself the gift of time and space to let life unfold as I nourish my soul.

This month, we have wonderful workshops and classes as we continue to inspire the deeper practices of yoga. Please continue to support us, and I’ll be back in May. Please take this month to honor Mother Earth and feel the pulse of change as a restructure of our collective humanity. Community-based in the heart of healing.

Much love,

Laura Jane

Spring, the Season of Awakening

The greatest work you can do in this world begins inside you.
Do you wish to change the world? Then change the inner condition inside yourself.
Do you wish to change the culture? Change your ways.
Want a healthier society? Change your mind.
World peace? Peace your inner world. Action arising from right thought.
If you want more kindness, practice being kind to yourself.

The path of yoga is a journey inward. If you pause, listen to the sounds around you, not the noise in your head, but the actual living sounds around you. Take in a breath, inhale, pause, exhale, pause. Observe the effects of just being aware of the breath. Notice the sounds and the sensations that are your actual aliveness.

It’s not so easy to let go of fixing or doing. Witness the awkward experience of being present. Life is movement, and the mind roams, looking for itself to be seen. It will never find itself until it moves inwards and rests in the space of the heart. Feel the willingness to let go of tension in gripping onto identity. Be invisible and trust the expanded feeling of aliveness just to be enough. This commitment to life is different than the desire to get life.

How can you get love, do love when you are love? The little mind will never let us feel this thought. It is not the intellect that knows this sacred path to actually being loved. Our intrinsic nature is this love, compassion and kindness. It is not until the mind can rest in its nature and let go of the need to attach to its identity. In a space of profound protection, we fall in love with our soul’s divine light of love. This must be experienced, and each of us will experience it in our own unique way of expression. We are all originals, unique souls within the ocean of humanity.

My passion arises in being the inspiration for healing the pain of being hostage to the wrong thought. The thought of self-loathing is taught so well. The coping mechanism to numb and distract only adds to the frustration of loneliness from the separation of listening to the inner voice. Hate is so easy to learn.

Purify the waters of your inner landscape and drink in the pure sweetness of this flowing river. This path is the way to the heart of loving. Clear the ocean that is your soul and allow the beauty of living in the world to be your legacy. If just for today, choose to come inward and breathe into your heart and exhale the light of love through the heart. If you want to change the world, as Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”.

March is the month of great change as we move into the season of Spring. The light changes, nature blooms, and the animal kingdom awakens. I am being inspired to listen deeply, and my invisible work is to continue to go deeper into my soul. Life presents new opportunities to learn. Celebrating new beginnings as the spring opens to possibilities.

Let us continue our commitment to the journey inward and shine brightly as collective humanity demands our peaceful contribution.

In light and love,

Laura Jane