Yoga is a State of Balance

The summer days bring in a blanket of thick, moist, warm air. We are experiencing humidity and heat, and yet, the loud vibration of the cicadas has passed as they return to the moist soil for another 17 years of sleep. We have arrived at the heart of summer, welcoming the month of July as the world keeps spinning with noise and distraction and the constant fluctuation of extremes.

Staying in a state of balance is mandatory now, as the mind’s habit is to wander into a summer haze of confusion. Our nervous systems will react quickly to bite. Being overheated physically can burn us out emotionally. We know that health is a state of mind; the mind’s nature is to roam, and we need a practice of focusing to slow down and stay present. In a world of rushing and doing, how do we cool the mind down and feel the ease of just being?  

 YAF is a place to come inward and share within a community the practice of feeling at ease. To cool the agitation of our outer distractions filled with our inner stories of constant struggle. Life is beautiful, and we need to experience the peaceful sanctuary of feeling safe. Our minds must be able to come inward to heal our physical and emotional bodies, and health is our abundance.  

We have to create space and time to practice. Coming into YAF offers us a safe harbor to get on the floor and breathe. Let the tensions of overthinking shift to an experience of feeling relaxed. Feel the calm that can wash over us as the physical body releases the tension. It takes practice, but this is what yoga offers us—a way to feel the experience of relaxation in being present.

We are not an exercise studio offering only a “workout in heat.” We are a healing studio that uses the practice of yoga to feel the sweet ease of letting the body become stronger as the mind releases its grip on the tensions in the body. The effect is a quality of peaceful coolness. I always say that until one experiences the words I say, they mean nothing. Yoga is all experiential.

How can I explain the feeling of riding a bicycle? I can describe it in terms that only make sense to the intellect, but actually taking that first moment of balance and ride is an individual moment, which is the intelligence feeling the effort. A teacher who inspires and nourishes the effect of feeling balanced is the magic.

Come and enjoy our wonderful teachers as they guide you inward through the brilliance that all yoga is restoring our balance. Yoga is a state of balance as our nervous systems are restored, and our hearts can open to the beauty of being alive. Healing is a state of balance.

View our class schedule and book your spot.

Love and light,

Laura Jane

Staying Amazed

Being amazed at the extraordinary within the ordinary functioning of my day, I can live in the chaotic noise of this world and still appreciate the mystery. To hold a sense of astonishment, with a deep curiosity and bafflement over the random moments presented, I can stay aware that this is the gift of being alive. Sitting with the doubt and the questions and being content with not knowing the answers.

Instead of seeing what’s wrong with the world, I have started to make a commitment to see what’s right with the world. Whether I like it or don’t like it, pleasant or unpleasant, or familiar or unfamiliar. I am choosing to embrace the moment as pure grace unfolds. What’s happening is not happening to harm me but to offer a gateway for practice. I am living my yoga as best I can in the midst of challenges and obstacles that remind me of my vulnerability and the conditional state of being human.

The cicadas have become my practice of patience, tolerance, and awe. Nature reminds all of us that we are not in control. My wild hair has succumbed to being a refuge for a few, trying to get onto that safe zone of the trees! My sweet dog has enjoyed a buffet of them as we walk, and I begin my daily adventure of acceptance.

This, too, shall pass. This quote has become my mantra as summer arrives and my flowers and garden come alive. Color is restored in Illinois, and the miracles of this season return. I listen. The early morning wake-up sounds of the birds have been louder than I have ever remembered, and thus, I begin my practice of staying amazed.

Let’s not rush into the day and start with the habit of doing, getting, and striving, but let the day unfold gently. Begin with a shift and choose to witness what’s being presented—the practice of absorbing the sensations around us.

The mind is tricky as it links to the habit of fear. Fear and the movement of thoughts into the fire of anger lead us to repeat doubt and worry. Life is challenging now for so many, and hearts are breaking with this world of chaos. Minds are spinning, and words can be harsh as we get exhausted from the rage we see in the world.

When I am tired, overwhelmed, and doubtful, I have no desire to move in another direction. It takes great effort to shift the noise and chatter of fear into the space of the breath and oxygenate the blood. Breathe into the body and purify and release the accumulated tension within the muscles and fascia.

The learned mind of habits and patterns keeps this false protection, and we believe we are just NOT flexible. Everybody can shift from what we have held as a false truth. We all can start to feel better with baby steps and start moving into the space of wanting to feel alive. To be human is to be vulnerable, and we must risk letting go and moving forward through a stable mind that feels rooted in an actual experience of feeling calm and at ease.

Desire to feel the body dropping its armor, feel the tightness around the chest, hips, and pelvis, and welcome the awkwardness of a spacious release. Energize and inspire the passion of living in amazement. Health and vitality are possible even amid deep emotional and physical pain. This spiritual gateway is through the heart. We are sharing a human experience of humanity breaking open, not apart.

Stay amazed and flexible with the constant shift of living from what we think to what we feel is Truth. This summer, we offer wonderful opportunities at YAF to heal and nourish our collective hearts. Come and join in our welcoming space and begin the practice of being “Amazed.”

See our June/July class schedule and book a weekly class.

Reserve your spot at our upcoming workshops and events.

with love and light,

Laura Jane Mellencamp-Murphy, MS, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500
Owner, Director, Certified Yoga Therapist
Yoga Among Friends, Downers Grove, IL

Expanding the Love Takes Courage of the Heart

Whenever I start to write these opening pages in our newsletter, I am presented with an empty page—a blank and open space to let my thoughts unfold and my heart be revealed. It takes courage every time I sit in the uncertainty of my life and reveal my vulnerability in sharing my words. David Whyte refers to courage as the measure of our heartfelt participation in life, with another, with community, with work, and with a future.

As I return from my journey through Japan, I am reminded that life always asks us to be willing to go inward even as we journey outward. The true gift of travel is in reflection and being able to digest and absorb the experience of living fully.

Japan is a living example of being in serenity. There is a quality of peacefulness in the beauty of nature, even within the chaotic flow of millions of people living tightly immersed with each other. Traffic flows without any loud horns blaring, voices are kept low, there is respect for the cleanliness of the environment for no one litters, and the streets are spotless. A gentle regard for patience is shared as everyone bows in greetings and in goodbyes. I felt a profound sweetness in the ease of travel, and I have never experienced such trust in my safety.

Traveling in Japan is a joy, having left the angst of our divided country and the profound ripple of anger and fear that is being absorbed in our consciousness. I could sit and meditate with Zen Buddhist monks and appreciate the culture that arose from hundreds of years of violence under the military rule of the Shogun.

Japan was an isolated island until the 1600s, and history is not kind to gaps in lifestyle. Peasant unrest grew, and by the late 18th century, mass protests over taxes and food shortages had become commonplace. Many samurai fell on “hard times” and shifted into wage jobs for merchants. Japan was forced to abandon its seclusion policy as Western intrusions increased in the 19th century.

In the aftermath of WWII, we are asked to humbly question our own moral identity as I did, having spent 3 days in Hiroshima. When does war ever allow individuals to cultivate inner peace? As I returned to the US and the current chaos on our college campuses, I believe in reflection and wonder what the future is presenting for the next generation.

It is interesting how history constantly repeats itself as change presents endings and new beginnings. Life is a courageous journey in accepting change so that nothing remains the same. The constant is that we all want the same thing individually, and we are all deeply aware of love. We all want to live in serenity and ease. We all want to cultivate a lifestyle of respect.

I am changing. Travel is offering me a gateway into going deeper into my practice, and it is changing. I accept that I want to achieve less and live more fully in grace.

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Today, I am authoring my own healing and creating a story of excitement and adventure in embracing my truth. I am making an effort to reject the social pressures that grind daily as I accept my aging, my health, and my journey. I will claim that my singular soul is at peace with my existence and tasting that freedom in letting go of my outer identity as a business owner. I am putting out to the universe a siren call to expand my torch. I am inviting some new possibilities into my life.

Come October of 2024, I am questioning signing another three-year lease. I have the energy today to continue, and yet, is that the wise choice? I have carried this sweet studio into a new time and feel new energy will only create better outcomes. Life presents more obstacles for me when I run a business at 70, and I want to pass on the legacy of Yoga Among Friends. I want to teach and create new venues to share my years of wisdom, yet my multi-tasking days of keeping my adrenaline state are asking me to let go. I can taste the intrinsic sacred need to go deeper and not be distracted by the multi-tasking of being a business owner.

I desire to carry on the story of community to another inspiring soul who will breathe new life into this amazing home of healing. As a yoga therapist, I want to continue offering my service and teaching, but I want to do less.

When I arrived from California all those years ago, I knew that to teach and have a lifestyle of living my yoga, I needed to create a space. What a miracle life offers when we set those intentions. I am honored to live such a wonderful story and cultivate such soul relationships. I left a life in LA at 40 to arrive in the Midwest, not knowing anyone, and settled into the western suburbs when everyone said, “ You can’t make a living there.” I trusted my inner voice, which refused to follow the voice of doubt. Trusting in something greater, I put down roots.

Laura Jane Mellencamp talks new beginnings

Those roots have produced amazing fruit today, and I am inviting a new gardener to add to the vision. So much possibility awaits; I am trusting the voice again that after raising my beautiful daughter and seeing her launched into the world, I must let my other child expand into something more. Love must expand, and the light will continue.

We celebrated 26 years of the day-in and day-out commitment to living with these healing tools. I am inviting any ideas, thoughts, and dreams to be shared as we move into a new beginning. Courage to grow takes the willingness to let go and allow the trust to unfold. I only know that there is cause and effect to everything. My decision is not to close but to expand; hopefully, this siren call will be heard. May is blooming with new life (see the wonderful workshops, series classes, and the return of our community class), and I feel excited about our possibilities.

Many blessings,

Laura Jane