It’s a new year, time to take stock of what was and look forward to what’s to come. Over here, it was a hard year to top- the arrival of our new baby, some exciting new career opportunities, really good times spent with family and friends. 2016 is looking pretty great from here and I’m so excited to see what’s next!

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.

It’s likely that there’s a lot of talk in your yoga life about intention-setting, about letting go of the past, about being mindful of what you invite in. Yes. Absolutely. But I want to talk about failure.

In our practice as in life, we set goals. We strive. We work hard. And sometimes circumstances do not conspire in our favour- we fail. But here’s the thing- that’s where growth happens. This is where we are challenged to take those intentions from our yoga practice, equanimity, non-attachment, the ability to be “alike in victory and defeat,” as Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, off the mat and into our lives. It’s easy to get down, to fill your head with negative self-talk and decide not to try anymore. What is hard is to stare into the eyes of failure and say, “Thanks, what were you trying to tell me exactly?” If it’s an asana we’re talking about maybe it’s your body telling you to take more time to warm up, or to back off that edge a little more and take it easy. If it’s a life goal, maybe the goal wasn’t fully in tune with your path. Maybe the road you took to get there wasn’t the road for you. Failure is a chance to take a look inside and to line up your actions more closely with that which is most true to you. To this end, we can embrace the gifts that failure has for us and use them to live that truth, fully and joyfully.

I hope all your best wishes for 2016 come true. But if the don’t, don’t get down. Look for the wisdom in the failure, and get going on your path to awesome.

In the spirit of newness this time of year embodies, I have two new classes at Nova starting this week- Happy Hour Tuesdays at 4 PM and Buddha Babies for moms and their pre-crawling little ones on Fridays at 10:30 (this is a six-week pre-registered session-to sign up go here: https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/home?studioid=12800)

See you on the mat! Happy new year!