“If you can imagine it you can have it. Reality is not what your eyes show your mind, but what your mind creates for your eyes to see. You are not limited by logic, the past, or the world around you. You are pure spirit.” ~Mike Dooley

I find that all too often we are coming to the mat in the midst of some horrific tragedy, difficult situation or heartbreaking circumstance of this human life.

But, at the same time, these terribly challenging events are not stopping baby’s being born, two people falling in love, marriages, birthdays, celebrations, acts of kindness, parties, growth, transformation or spiritual connection.

Anne Frank wrote, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up at the heavens, I think that it will all come out right, that this cruelty too will end and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

We can not, in any way, neglect the sadness, anger, confusion or pain that we feel. The idea is that we feel these emotions fully. But, at the same time, we hold steady the vision of our highest intentions which are happiness and love. I believe a lot of different things bring students to the yoga mat, be it physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, it doesn’t matter. If any of these intentions were to be broken down to their root we would find that all we really want is happiness and love.

What I have learned is that it has to start within. Each time I come to the mat I get this incredible opportunity to know who I am at my core, which is pure spirit, which is happiness and love (you see we are the very thing we so desperately want). I also get to explore the areas where I’m blocking source, inspiration, divinity, happiness and love within. I get to see fully where and when I’m choosing fear, anger, hate, negativity. And when I find these areas of tension, tightness and restriction the practice has given me the tools to pause, breathe, hold the illusion of fear, anger, hate and negativity up to the luminous light of spirit and see if it can withstand the power of my beating heart, of my natural born inclination for happiness and love.

It took me a long time to challenge the beliefs that I held and start asking the questions like: “What if I’m meant to be happy? What if life is meant to be fun? What if the Universe or God isn’t judging me at all but loving me every minute?”

I love this explanation from Mike Dooley on why we have become so seemingly evil: “The reason we see a very small portion of the world’s people behaving, at times, so horribly, as if possessed by evil, is not the result of us following our passions but of our wholesale neglect of them and the tensions, resentment, and fear this has created.”

What does happiness look like to you? Sound like? Feel like? The Universe says “if you can imagine it, you can have it”. But how often do we believe this? That’s the catch. In order for the intention to be made manifest we have to believe that it’s possible. We can’t say “I want to be happy but I won’t be until this is different” or “if only this would change, you’d be different, if only I had this or that, then I’ll be happy”. We can’t focus on lack and gain abundance. We can’t hold our attention on hate and receive love. We can’t be unhappy and expect happiness to come. We have to believe that it is available to us. We have to hold steady the vision of happiness and love regardless of what is happening around us.

So what does love look like to you? Sound like? Feel like? If you can imagine it you can have it. "Reality is what your mind creates for your eyes to see." Process your feelings of anger and sadness, know too where they live within you. But hold steady the vision of happiness and love. When you are watching a beautiful sunrise say “thank you”. When you are listening to the sound of a baby laughing or crying at a wedding ceremony, note the beauty. When you are laughing so hard you cry stop and relish in those feelings. When someone gives you a compliment, you help a stranger on the street, you smell a flower or pick something out of your garden, when you sit on your mat and hear your breath or the beating of your heart, know that in those moments you are aligned with your truth, you are aligned with happiness and love. You are remembering as Anne Frank did when she looked up at the heavens, that it is all going to come out all right.

“If you can imagine it you can have it. Reality is not what your eyes show your mind, but what your mind creates for your eyes to see. You are not limited by logic, the past, or the world around you. You are pure spirit.” ~Mike Dooley