Opening to grace

One of my yoga teachers said something that has stayed with me for several months. In Anurasa yoga, one of the primary goals is to open to grace, which she explained as softening of the heart. When you are striving and working so hard to do something in yoga or in life and you arrive at a place you are stuck, the thing to do is soften and learn what you can from what you are doing. I loved that! It fits so well with the gospel and describes how I often feel about life. When you are relying on your own works or your own merit, you can only get so far. To progress, we need the grace of our Savior, and we must soften our hearts to receive that. I am pondering the connection between an "open" heart (yoga) and a "broken" heart that is the sacrifice required by us to access our Savior's grace. I also think that I am a pretty hard judge of what I do sometimes and I am trying to open to grace--soften-- in how I approach life

Although I can do this pose, you can probably tell this picture is not me. I don't think I could do yoga if a camera was around. As the line from Karate Kid goes, my "focus needs more focus."