Lessons in Love: Practical Advice from the Yoga Mat
By Melissa Bryan Lead With Love Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. May all beings be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and freedom for all. Valentine’s Day 2021 recently passed, and as I sit on the opposite side of that holiday having just taught my high school students to create heart maps to identify the parts of their lives that fill their hearts, and having just finished Romeo & Juliet with some and Great Expectations with others, I find myself reflecting a lot on love and how it works in the universe. Literature helps us question the larger, and perhaps fated, direction of our future existence; story syntax offers us that predictive power. What, however, helps us live those universal governing concepts? How do we practice transcendent and deep love in our present? Yoga teaches us that. These words, “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” remind us that love radiates out from us; it is the hope for e