Yesterday I put on real clothes (aka “not yoga clothes”) and used a jacket I wore last Spring. When I reached into the pocket I found a note card with this quote: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you say. People will forget what you do. But people will never forget how you made them feel.—Maya Angelou.”

I couldn’t help but smile—not only because it was a great find, but it reminded me of how I would randomly leave notes for Don and Casey whether it be in a jacket, lunch bag, car, or briefcase saying “I love you” or “Smile and share that smile” or even a quote like this Maya Angelou quote.

Later I thought deeper about this quote. A lot like yoga, I realized that my students will probably forget what I say, be it a quote or a cue, and they may even forget what they did in the sequence. But hopefully they have learned to tap deeper within the feeling centers of their bodies to truly remember how they feel. My goal for every practice is to guide my students via healthy cues to create integrity in their postures so they can understand and heighten their inner awareness…and simply FEEL.

Many times we get caught up in what the posture should look like or concentrate more on the end result, but you cannot forget about how it felt to get there and how it feels when you’re there, no matter how it looks on the outside. If it feels true and is done with integrity, you will feel aligned in body and in mind.

I also thought, too, that it all should come from an authentic place. Sometimes we say or do things because we “have to” or “should do” to make others happy. But if those words or actions come from an inauthentic place, then what you put out into the world is equally inauthentic. So our words and actions should also have integrity.

Maybe these thoughts will inspire your practice on an off your mat this week, my friends. Namaste.