Now Every 1st & 3rd Sunday! Sanctuary & Sound:


Yoga with Live Music 2:30-4:30pm Indoors, in the historical Bates Garden Club, Birch State Park, Vinyasa class w live music by Sapopaz, plus a yummy vegetarian meal --$20 cash. Bring your own mat, bowl and utensils and drink.


April 1st, Erika Metz/April 15 th Adam Bator


April 13-15 Yin Yoga Training with Joe Barnett *Hands-on study of anatomy. *Tension vs


Learning to Love Yourself: Te Greatest Love of All


by Rev. Lana Charlton T


he song, “The Greatest Love of All”, written by Dolly Parton and made fa- mous by Whitney Houston, filled the


airwaves a few months ago for a whole week. It brought me back a few decades when I saw myself sitting in a women’s support group. It was like yesterday, sitting in that circle of powerful women, hearing Whitney Houston belt out those words, “I found the greatest love of all inside of me. The greatest love of all, is easy to achieve; learning to love yourself, it is the great- est love of all.” Yet, with all of our outer power and successes, we were struggling to learn and accept ourselves. The therapist played it through the first time, a second and then a third. The circle of women began to release long held grief. Love begins in me; it was going to be “easy” to find, because it was inside of me. Deep, guttural crying and a river of tears would be released before that song quit playing three times. Each of us began to surrender our long held belief, love could be found out there, if we were pretty enough, smart enough, and worked hard enough at it. Understanding deepened and flowed into each woman’s blood, showing deep, soulful eyes. We were each caught in that “lonely place” where we grow, and yet, only we can go. We can share our lives and processes


with those whom we are closest, but the love, the work, the acceptance, comes from the inside out. No one can love us, for us. At a glance, we were grown women; another glance, we were newbies learning to love, forgive, and nurture our- selves, hoping and praying this was going to be easy. Some of us had never heard the word nurture, much less practiced it. Years later, listening to the words


anew, I recognized I had fooled myself. I thought this loving myself would be easier; this changing would come with awareness. The song does suggest “learn- ing to love myself” not “learned to love myself”. Learning is a process, and it takes daily action of loving myself anew. Once again, I was looking for some- thing more fixed and solid. The fluidity of love, life, health, and well-being is always about learning and evolving. Life is never fixed; it is expressing! Loving myself is not something to be captured and fixed that will make me forever loving. It is learning and evolving just as I am. Music, art, poetry, nature, a sweet


baby’s smile, things that take our breath away, help me believe in the ideal which touches that exalted part of myself. The greatest love of all dwells in me and as me. I felt it, I lived it, I tasted it, and I’ve expressed it, only to have gotten distracted


Compression, Muscle vs Facia, Physical vs Subtle Energy. *Finding skeletal landmarks / testing range of motion *Introduction to sequencing. And More. $325 or, Pay by April 1st, $300. Friday night may be taken separately - $55


June 1-5 Yoga Therapy Training w Marlysa Sullivan, Module Two: Meditation in Action. Sign up and details on the web.


breathe...


918 NE 20th Avenue, 2nd floor, waterside. Fort Lauderdale 954.828.1651 www.redpearlyoga.com


stretch... become...


by worldly things, again finding myself lost and in “that lonely place”. Many of us try and avoid the “lonely


place” of life. This is why addiction is so prevalent. Our loving hearts call out to us, “I’m here, the greatest love of all, just waiting for you, just as you are.” There is nothing you have to change, just love. Yes, even that! The greatest love of all calls out from our hearts, because it is lonely for its true self, its true connection. Have I misjudged it because it is so uncomfortable? Is this where the old must be surrendered and die away in me? The harder spaces must be uprooted and give way to the great root – Love. Today, I’m still “learning” to love my-


self. I pray we begin to teach our children earlier, the greatest Love begins in you! Rev. Lana Charlton is the senior


minister at Unity Gateway Church, Coral Springs, and writes for numerous world- wide, national, and local publications. See ad page 49.


natural awakenings April 2012 45


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