———-A Letter from a Recent Absolute Hot Yoga Graduate ———-
“Absolutely Life Changing…”
Dear Jeanne, Pim, Harreson, John, Lucas, and all the others who made this “Experience” real:
It has been a few months since the completion of our experience together, and I have had time to get some distance and to reflect upon the time we spent together.
I have been attempting to capture why the 30 days we spent together seemed so eventful. Trying to understand the importance that those days we spent together seemed to have upon my life.
When I think about time, 30 days seems to be insignificant in the average lifetime of the average person. And yet the 30 days we shared allowed me to reflect upon what many people rarely experience in this day and age within our varying cultures and social diversities.
What was it?
Come to a place, do a bunch of yoga and learn a sequence of postures in the expectation that I can share this ancient art with others. Is that what the 30 days is about?
We all came together in one place bringing with us, our uniqueness of experiences, our varying levels of expectations, vulnerabilities and openness for changes in our bodies and beyond. We all came with the understanding that you would hold for us, a space to learn.
This space having less to do with Absolute Sanctuary than the space you have been inspired to create and grow, within your personal expansions and contractions within your own lives.
On a small scale, coming together and learning to share an art form that is bigger than words, was a gift that will keep on giving long after our 30 days together. And as advertised, that in itself, is enough. The space you have created is about much more.
On a larger scale, the time we spent together is a miracle that was created, experienced and lived. Lived in ways that go beyond teaching, lived in ways that go beyond yoga, and lived in ways that go beyond words that I will attempt to describe in the efforts to capture the essence of our 30 days together.
What can we expect to happen in 30 days? 41 people from all over this planet gathered together and shared moments that changed us forever. What was it that happened? We sweat, we memorized our lines, we ate well and we were held in this space where miracles danced all around us. What was it?
We experienced contact, connection, and true community that many of us in this lifetime, rarely get a chance to “experience”. And when we do experience it, it seems to fade away and disappear leaving only fond memories and an aching within to feel it again.
This is the miracle because once we taste it and experience “it,” it becomes a part of us.
I would like to thank you for the work you have done within your own practices and your own lives to come to a place where you can share such a safe and authentic experience for others to taste and experience within ourselves and to share it with others so that we may share it with the people we go back to.
And along with this heartfelt thanks, appreciation, and validation for what you have created, I would like to offer myself with the genuine intention of expanding upon these levels of contact, connectedness and true community that I understand to be at the core of what makes this experience so valuable and precious for those who are lucky enough to taste it.
All in just 30 days.
Respectfully and Gratefully,
Dale McLaughlin (Hawaii, USA)
Certified Absolute Hot Yoga Teacher
