Be Here Now

Be here now. 

Recently I returned from a 23 day yoga certification training at the Yandara Institute in Baja. Our yoga instructor and founder of Yandara, directed us to Be Here Now during one of our first morning flow practices. These three simple words have a profound impact when listened to and embodied.

Earning my 200 hour RYT to become a certified yoga instructor had been a percolating idea in my mind for at least a decade. There was always an excuse: it cost too much money, didn’t have not enough time, how could I possibly commit, I didn’t deserve that kind of opportunity, etc. My inner critic is brilliantly vocal, persistent, and cunning. So I never REALLY thought this “dream” would come to fruition.

I began practicing yoga at the local women’s gym “Cindy’s Body Shop” back in the late 1990’s. My initial attraction to yoga was how it simultaneously relaxed and energized me. It was different from all my prior fitness endeavors: competitive sports, running, high impact aerobics, kickboxing, etc. I had some baseline flexibility due to my years as a gymnast, but the slower pace was an interesting challenge for me. 

The time and focus spent on each pose, along with the breathwork, gave my monkey mind a brain break while helping my physical body feel better. Every time I showed up on my mat, no matter the teacher or the class or the events of my day, yoga managed to give me exactly what I needed. 

Over the years, yoga evolved from simply a tool in my fitness tool box to helping me manage daily life stressors and anxieties. It became an important habit to cultivate for my overall well being. The mind-body-spirit connection continued to grow for me as yoga became a part of my life.

Readers of this blog may recall I attended a grief retreat in February 2023. One of the retreat leaders, Phoenix, introduced me to the Yandara Yoga Institute. I explored the website and mentally filed it away under the elusive “maybe someday” folder. As the months ticked by I found myself thinking about it almost everyday, along with the knowledge that we don’t know what the future holds. Surrendering to “endless unknowability,” eventually I registered for the January 2024 session. I plugged in the departure date to my DayCount app on my phone, allowing myself to feel some hopeful anticipation. 

And then unfortunate circumstances disrupted the plans, as readers learned in my last post. I ended up having to postpone my training not once, but twice, finally arriving at Yandara in late March. And what do you know? The timing was just right.

I wrote Be Here Now on the inside of my wrist for a few days to remind myself to live in the present moment. I’ve become quite competent at ruminating over the past and fretting about the future. Which neither serves me, nor the people around me, when I insist on occupying that past or future headspace.

All we have is consciousness of the present. 

Be here now.

Yandara is designed to help students be conscious and present: outdoor living, silent hours from 10:00 pm – 10:00 am everyday, technology detox, sleeping in tents, open air showers and flush toilets, fresh vegetarian food, no alcohol, no caffeine, proximity to nature (beach and desert), simplicity of the daily schedule (only breaks are meal times), practicing and learning about yoga everyday, satsang (musical gatherings), satya (truth circle). This structure created opportunities to build community and nurture relationships in a loving and positive environment.

Towards the end of the training, we were invited to participate in a solo vision quest. This translated into sleeping on the sand for a night. Fasting for 24 hours. Hanging out in solitude on the beach with no distractions – no book, no journal, no phone. It was in periods of discomfort with no distractions that I could truly Be Here Now.

Trying to describe my experience at Yandara is like trying to describe childbirth to someone who’s never had a baby. I can give you a high level overview for the mental picture, but the powerful healing happened in my heartspace. It happened during moments of acute consciousness. As the days progressed, light and warmth softened my jagged interior caverns. By the end, I felt a buoyancy, hopefulness, and joy that I feared had been banished to a faraway existence.

Alas, settling back into life in the “other world” (as the Yandara teachers call it) has gifted me lots of opportunities to accept reality as reality is. I cannot change the past or predict the future. Each moment I can choose to keep learning and letting go of control. To receive and release. All I can do is Be Here Now.