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Dear Friends, This Saturday I will (hopefully) be getting on a plane with 14 other wonderful humans headed to Rayos Del Sol in Costa Rica for the week…a place where the sun sets over our ocean view, where the howler monkeys roam the trees, our random iguana friend graces our patio every so often and our morning coffee makes me want to sing it’s so good. Pura Vida. I’m excited…and I am so very nervous. Planning and executing a retreat in a Global Pandemic has not been without worry, and I have been feeling all the emotions surrounding it for a long time. The preparations have been made, insurance has been purchased, tests are being required…we are doing all we can do to stay safe and responsible…but that worry is still there. It’s been a long season of near-constant uncertainty for all of us, right? Some more than others, and definitely different then others. Some have carried more throughout this time…but all have been affected. The world around us has been touched by this near-constant state of low-grade anxiety, this state of unknown. While we have no choice but to live in this state we find ourselves in, I wonder how it would feel to find some space in the midst of that state once in a while. How would it feel to find a place that feels like relief in the middle of a state of near-constant uncertainty? What would that look like and feel like in our own lives? My dear friends, I hope you can find a little more space and a little more relief in the midst of uncertainty this week. Our fears, our worries, our anxieties are valid, we feel them and they are there. I hope this week, while seeing and feeling those valid fears, you can simultaneously find a place that feels like relief. Have a wonderful week, my friends. Love Krista 
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Dear Friends, If you live in the Washington DC area, you’ll know that last week we had a big snow storm come through the area, covering the region with inches of snow. My kids and I were cross country skiing through Rock Creek on Monday afternoon after the storm. We were on a trail I frequently walk. The world around us was stunning, spectacular really. The trees were heavy with snow, it seemed like every branch was covered. The weather had been so warm the day before, it created perfect conditions for the snow to stick to all the trees, bushes, rocks…every surface seemed blanketed with a beautiful, thick layer of snow. While we were moving through a place that was so deeply familiar, it looked so vastly different. As we were skiing, as I was noticing the world that I so frequently see looking so very different than normal, I was thinking about that blog post from a couple of weeks ago and my inability to drag myself out of bed. I had finally, after weeks of lulling myself back to sleep when my alarm went off, talked myself into getting out of bed and getting back to my routine. I found that, once I got back to it for a couple of days, it was pretty easy to get back to normal. But here’s the thing…routine isn’t always what I need. Routine doesn’t take into account how tired I am, how my body feels, how from day to day things look and feel different. I’m the same person, but my needs change from day to day. And so, of late I’ve been trying to be more aware and alert to what I need on any given day. I’ve been trying to listen a little more carefully, to notice when I need to move and when I need to rest, and to give myself permission to take what I need instead of simply moving through my routine. Just as that trail was both the same and so very different, so our bodies' needs are so very different from day to day. I hope this week, my friend, you can give yourself a little more permission to give your body what it needs without any judgement. Have a wonderful week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, We are not separate from, but part of. Last week one of my teachers said those words, and they have stayed with me and in me these past several days. We were standing on the edge of the woods after a slow walk through said woods. On the edge of those woods was a busy road. As we stood there, grounding our feet into the earth and allowing all of our feelings in, she said the reason she liked that spot was because it was a tangible reminder of that truth. Even when we are going through hard times, even when life feels overwhelming, even when we are feeling so alone in our pain and grief we are not separate from the world around us, but we are part of the world around us. That doesn’t always feel like the case, right? Sometimes, when hard times come, we just feel so very alone. Sometimes we feel like we want to curl into a ball and exit from the world around us. But what would it feel like to step into the world when those hard times come. What would it feel like to open our arms and allow others in? What would it feel like to, instead of separating ourselves, allow ourselves to be more connected to the world around us, allow for collective grief, allow others to stand with us in our pain. We are not separate from, we are a part of the world around us. My dear friends, I hope this week we are able to open our arms a little more, and allow the world around us in just a little bit more. I hope you have an amazing week, and such a happy New Year my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, I was in the woods last week for the first time in a while, walking down a trail I had walked down countless times. As I walked down that well-known trail, that trail I had walked countless times, I was thinking about routine. Routine sometimes feels boring, right? We get tired of the sameness, we get a little complacent, we might stop paying such close attention to what we’re doing. We might get a little lazy in our routine. Simultaneously, routine can be so deeply helpful. A couple of months ago I got a little cold. Nothing major, but seeing as I have a lot of activity in my week due to my work, I decided to back down from any extra activity in my week. One week turned into two, which turned into three. Turns out, I had a really faithful routine going, and when I fell off that routine, I just fell hard…it felt so hard to get back on routine. Every morning my alarm would go off, and my bed would be so warm, and I would be so tired, and those extra 45 minutes of sleep would feel so very enticing. And on and on it went, for weeks and weeks. Every morning I would argue with myself, and every morning my bed would win. My dear friends, sometimes we can see clearly what we need to do, and it can still be so very hard to do it. I wonder what it would feel like to practice a little more understanding, a little more grace with ourselves when we inevitably fall off the routine we had hoped to stay on. My friends, I hope you can find your routine, but if you can’t, I hope you can find a little more grace and care for yourself this week. Have an amazing week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Remember when I said movement helps me process things? Full admission, it’s been hard to get outside and move lately, and I’ve been feeling it in my body and my mind. Tuesday was the Winter Solstice, the darkest, shortest day of the year. We’ve been moving through a space where days get shorter, where light sets sooner, where it’s harder to get outside and to spend time in the light. Perhaps, as me, you’re feeling it in your mind and your body. Perhaps it’s settled in a bit, perhaps it’s hard to see and feel the light. But today light will stay around a little longer than yesterday. And tomorrow even longer. And the day after that, even longer. My dear friends. Perhaps it’s hard to see and feel the light right now in your own life. I wonder if we can find a little more acceptance in the space we’re in, even if that space is a little bit dark…and in that acceptance, I wonder if we find a little more hope that tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that the light will stay a little longer. I hope you have an amazing week dear friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, I’ve been sitting in thoughts about that flash flood I spoke about a couple of weeks ago, coupled with my weekend of hibernation last weekend. While my mama and I were walking the 5 miles back to our cars in Zion last summer, we were reading some of the signs that talked about flash floods. The Virgin river in Zion National Park transports about one million tons of sediment every year, but the majority of that sediment is transported during flash floods, changing the landscape, causing erosion and carving the canyon further with the rushing waters. Several months ago on a Friday I was just in a mood. I was feeling grumpy, sad and “off” and was, in general, not feeling myself. All day long starting with my first early-morning class I had this feeling of grumpiness, sadness, and this feeling of being “off”, but I couldn’t pin-point why I was feeling the way I was feeling, I couldn’t figure out what was going on in me that day…I knew it was happening, I could feel it, but I couldn’t figure out the “why”. I finished up with my work that afternoon, and decided to go to the park for a bit of a slow jog. As I started moving my body, as my heart rate started quickening and blood started moving a bit faster, I suddenly recognized what emotions I had been holding on to that day, what had been affecting my mood and why I had been feeling grumpy all day long. With movement I was able to pinpoint my feelings, I was able to see them and to recognize them as valid. With movement I was able to see why I was feeling what I was feeling, and in seeing, was able to give myself permission to both feel those feelings and also take more ownership and control over those feelings. Did the movement and the realization make that sadness go away? No. But did it give me both permission to feel what I was feeling and more control over those feelings? Absolutely. My dear friends, there are days and times when we just need to hibernate and turn inward a bit…but simultaneously I think it’s important to recognize the power of movement to help us process our feelings. Just like the rushing water of those flash floods in Zion help change and carve the landscape of a canyon, so our movement practices help change our bodies and our minds and help us process how and what we are feeling. Our movement practice has the power to help us feel more empowered in our own bodies and minds. I hope you have an amazing week, my dear friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, I was on a walk in the woods the other day. It was not so late in the day, yet I could just see the sun through the trees on the edge of the horizon. It’s getting to that time of year..the darkest time of year. The light is fading, it’s getting darker and colder. The sun is up for a shorter period of time and we’re naturally less inclined to move and more inclined to hibernate. This past weekend, I was feeling pretty down and blue for a couple of reasons. I had some plans that involved me really stretching myself in ways that I was both nervous about, and excited for....but I had to break those plans. While that was the correct decision for me, I was still feeling a little down on myself. The holidays are lovely and wonderful and sometimes really hard, and this past weekend I was feeling the ups and downs of emotions surrounding this time of year. And so, as we’re inclined to do, I hibernated a bit this past weekend. Even though weather-wise it was a beautiful weekend, and it probably would have made me feel better to get outside, I stayed inside, I checked some things off my to-do list, and I binged some stupid TV. And I was kind of down on myself a little more about my weekend choices. But, my friends, there are times when we just need to hibernate a bit...and there isn’t anything wrong with that. My dear friends, can we see what we need with a little less judgement and a little more acceptance this week. May we recognize that the world, the weather, life has an effect on us and sometimes we just need a little bit of time to move inside and hibernate. May we find a little more love and acceptance and a little less judgement for ourselves this week. I hope you have an amazing week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Sometimes joy comes in surprising places. Quite a while ago I was telling you about my trip this past summer to Zion National Park with my family, our walk in the Narrows, and the threat of a flash flood that did not come into fruition. What I didn’t tell you was that a flash flood did happen...it just happened on the opposite side of the park from us....and shut down the entire park for hours. My family and I had made it out of the Narrows before the rain started in earnest, stood in line for our shuttle bus in the rain, and then got on the shuttle bus to take us to where the rest of our family waited at the entrance to the park. We started on our way, got a few stops down, and stopped...and waited…for hours. Wet, shivering, stuck on a muggy and cold bus, my mama, several siblings and I, and a gaggle of nieces and nephews and my kids waited, with no idea why we were stopped, only that it was a shelter-in-place. After hours of waiting, we finally got on our way again, only to be stopped a few miles down with no indication of when or if we would be able to get to our cars that day. If you’ve ever been to Zion, you’ll know that you park at the southern entrance to the park, and then take a shuttle bus up the canyon. By that second stop we were about 5 miles away from the entrance, but it was cold and drizzly, and we were in the shelter of a bus and knew we would be safe there if we couldn’t get out of the park and that it could potentially be dangerous if we got stuck on the road with no shelter in the cold and wet. But the weather finally turned. It got a little warmer, it stopped raining, and so our discussions turned in earnest to whether we stay on the bus with the unknown time-frame, or walk the five miles to our car. After much debate back and forth, we decided to take the walk. And, oh my friends, it was just the most beautiful walk. The shuttle bus is a lovely ride (when you’re not stuck on it for hours), but you can’t see the canyon fully when you’re on it. But our walk, our walk was just magical. Five miles, slightly downhill the whole time, with the canyon walls surrounding us and the ability to really soak in the beauty of that place in a totally different way. Yes, there were some blisters, some chafing, a bit of kid complaining (there had been miles and miles of hiking prior to our unexpected five mile walk!), but it was totally worth it to experience that canyon in that new and different way. At the exact time we walked up to the visitor center, we saw our bus turn into the road in front of us. Turns out our walk was unneeded. But the experience was priceless, it was so majestic and beautiful. My dear friends, sometimes joy comes in surprising and unexpected places. And sometimes we need to look around to find it. I hope you have a joyful week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Sometimes we just need to stop and take some time for ourselves, right? Several weeks ago I had a day and a stint of weeks where I was just slammed. I had a run of lovely, but busy weekends, and as a result, had gotten behind on some work. Life piled up and there was a list that just seemed to be getting longer by the second. That day also happened to be one of those ridiculously beautiful Fall days that we had in the DC area, stunning really. As I drove to a client at one point in my day I realized, while I had so many tasks that needed to get done, I also needed to take a little bit of time to be outside...so, in-between some classes and clients I stopped off at the park, fit a quick walk in and was able to enjoy the beauty of the afternoon for a bit. As I walked through the park, trying to put work out of my mind for a bit, to calm the anxiety of the list that kept getting longer, and focused on enjoying the stunning colors of the trees around me I was thinking about how easy it would have been to keep working straight on through that day, to ignore the chance for a pause and to fill my afternoon with those tasks that, well, frankly still needed to get done. Life gets so busy this time of year. It’s hard to justify slowing down at times...but, my friends, it is so important for us to slow down, to take some time for ourselves and for our own well-being even in the midst of the busyness. My dear friends, as our lives start to get busier this time of year, as the lists start getting longer and the tasks start piling up, may we recognize the need to slow down at times, to take a pause, to breathe a little deeper, and to take some time for ourselves in the midst of the busyness. Maybe we can’t cut anything out of our lives, but perhaps we can still find some time for our own well-being while surrounded by the busyness. I hope you have a fabulous week my friends, I am so deeply grateful for each and every one of you.. Love Krista  Dear Friends, This past weekend my kids and I took a little drive to Shenandoah to see the end of the cycle of Fall and the sunset. It was a beautiful drive out there, with many of the trees still bright with the colors of fall and some standing empty and barren already. We got to our destination, and took a short hike up to the second-tallest peak in the park about 20 minutes before sunset and settled in. The view of the park was breathtakingly beautiful....and cold. Oh my goodness, it was cold. The wind was going at the top of the rocks and it was piercing. One of my sons had brought enough clothes, so he scampered about like a billy goat on the rocks, having a great time exploring. The other son and I were not so lucky...so we huddled together in the nook of a rock, cuddling, sharing body heat, and trying to keep our cores warm as we sat there. I had looked at the weather prior to leaving the house, but had failed to factor in the wind, and as we all know, the wind makes a big difference. As I sat there, huddled to keep warm, I was thinking about our perceptions. This was a beautiful day, we had a wonderful time together, I would do it over again....cold and all. And also, in that same hand, our day held a bit of misery and piercing cold....but no one could see that misery in the pictures of my sons and I together, beautiful trees and rocks, or a lovely sunset. The pictures we see are never the full picture, right? My dear friends, may we recognize that the pictures we see are never the full picture. While they may hold a snippet of the truth, they are never the full truth. May we hold that truth when we inevitably start to compare our reality with someone else’s pictures. I hope you have an amazing week, my friends. Love Krista  Or, how we all need a little help from a friendDear Friends, A few weeks ago I went for a walk in the woods. I had gotten done with my day a little late, then had a bit of work to catch up on, and got out a bit later than I had initially planned. That, coupled with the fact that the days are not quite as long as they have been, made for a bit of a darker walk toward the end of my saunter through the woods. Towards the latter part of my walk, the path became much less clear and I was forced to go slower so I didn’t trip on an unseen root or rock. As it happened, it was the beautiful October harvest moon that night, and as I finished my walk the moon was low in the sky, massive, and just gorgeous...it was also conveniently helpful toward the end of my walk. While it was still hard to see the path, the light of the moon allowed me to see my path a little more clearly. I was thinking, toward the end of my walk, about those moons in our lives. Those people who may not shine a direct light on our path, who may not tell us where to walk and show us exactly where the rocks and roots are, but those people in our lives who light our path just a little more. While they might not point out exactly where we should walk, they make the world around us a little brighter so we can see where we’re going just a little more clearly. My dear friends, may we see those in our lives who allow us to see our path a little more clearly. May we see them and may we find gratitude for the role they play in our lives. I hope you have an amazing week, my friend. Love Krista  Dear Friends, People, events, experiences. They never fully leave us even when they’re gone. I was walking in my neighborhood a couple of months ago when I happened to look up and see wires running through a piece of a tree, and a portion of a tree left behind. I know it sounds funny, but as I stood there, it gave me pause and struck me as profound. Clearly the wires had grown through an existing, living tree, and then when the tree had to be taken down for one reason or another, a portion had to stay behind to maintain the integrity of the wires. As I walked I was thinking about how that parallels life. People, events, experiences...they never really fully go away, they always leave little pieces behind in us. Just like the structure of the wires have been changed by that tree, so we are changed by our life experiences. Sometimes those left behind pieces bring us comfort and joy, sometimes those pieces need to be worked through with a good therapist, but all of them help to shape the beautiful and worthy humans we are, humans deserving of love and respect, both by ourselves and by those around us. My dear friends, I hope you can see your beauty, your worthiness, and the way your experiences have helped create your wonderful self. And your self is wonderful my dear friends. You are so deeply worthy of love and respect. I hope you have an amazing week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Last week I was irritatedly walking through the woods, remember? I’ve been sitting in that for the past few days, sitting in the thought of being “in a hurry” during my walk. There’s this space in my life right now where, at times, I am really good at walking through this space slowly. I’m really good at feeling my feelings, at looking at my emotions, at seeing the areas where growth and change are required and in doing that very necessary work. And there are times when I just want to be in a hurry in this particular space in my life. There are times when I just want to put my head down, stop looking around and observing where I’m at and feeling my feelings, and simply walk on through. Understandable, right? My dear friends. There are times when we just want to put our heads down and hurry through the hard times in our lives. There are times when we don’t want to look around, when we don’t want to see and feel, when we just want to forge ahead. But dear friends, what will we miss along the way if we don’t take the time to slow down, to feel our feelings and to see the areas where growth and change are required? What will we miss when, instead of doing that necessary work, we simply move through without looking and observing? I hope, this week, you can see and observe. I hope you can show up for the necessary work in your life even when it is hard and scary, even when it is the thing you don’t want to do. I hope you have an amazing week my friend. Love Krista  Dear Friends, I was walking in the woods last week. It was a glorious day, a touch cool and cloudy, but not too cloudy. The leaves on the trees were starting to turn colors, but I was still blanketed by that deep, rich green all around me. It was such a beautiful day. And I was irritated. There was a mosquito buzzing in my ear, and no matter how often I smacked the air around me, I couldn’t get it to go away. There was a man walking his dog 70 feet in front of me, talking on the phone, and while I recognize I have no ownership over the trail I was on, I just really wanted to be alone. The beginning and end of the trail was close to the road and there happened to be a bunch of traffic on that particular road that day. I hate notifications and usually have them on silent, but somehow some notifications were turned on and I hadn’t figured out how to turn them off. I was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t get to do the full loop I wanted to do. Irritated. As I was walking, I was noticing how I was feeling. I was trying not to judge myself for them, instead, just trying to notice the feelings. As I noticed, I also noticed how deep, how rich the green was around me. I noticed the smell of the damp earth and how refreshing it was. I noticed several gorgeous blue jays flying in and out of a beautiful oak tree. I noticed the beautiful colors of the leaves both in the trees and on the ground. I noticed. I noticed and was so very grateful for the beauty around me. But I was still irritated. My dear friends, I wonder if we can notice how we sometimes hold multiple truths at the same time. Can we notice without judging ourselves. Our lives, our emotions are complex, and sometimes we hold multitudes. May we see ourselves holding multitudes with a little less judgement today. May we see ourselves with a little less judgement today. I hope you have an amazing week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, I was walking in the park several weeks ago. It was a lovely, warm, but not too warm day towards the end of summer. I was glad it was not too warm, as the air around me was still and there was no breeze. As I walked I noticed the stillness of the air, and the effect it had on the water. While you can frequently see reflections of the world around you in the water, even if it is moving or murky, on this particular day the reflections were so clear, almost like a picture of the world around. As I walked I was thinking of our own reflections, our feelings, our own recollections of our past. I was thinking about how sometimes, as the water, those reflections can be muddled, they can be fuzzy...and there are times when those reflections, those feelings we had in the past can be crystal clear in our bodies. There are times when we can feel what we were feeling at the time, where we can be present in our past. While sometimes those reflections do not serve us, I think many times we can look back, we can see and reflect on our past, and we can see how far we’ve come. We can see the changes we’ve made that perhaps, in the moment, we did not notice. Through time and space we can feel the difference in our journey, and while we might not have that crystal clear picture, we can see a little more clearly how far we’ve come along the way... My dear friends, may we embrace the reflections of our past, and may we see how far we’ve come on our journey. May we embrace the journey. I hope you have an amazing week dear friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, The leaves are starting to turn, seasons are beginning to change. Around this time a year ago I started this blog with a post titled “Change is Required”, and oh boy, was I right. Change was required in my own life in deep, profound, and unexpected ways. Several months ago I was walking down a trail in the park. I was walking a loop, but I was on a schedule as I had a client later that afternoon. As I walked, to my left was a smaller trail I hadn’t ever been on. Seeing as I had a client and not a lot of wiggle room in my day, but I was curious about where that trail went and what I would find, I continued on my walk, but made a mental note to come back to that trail another day. As I continued on my way, I was reflecting on this past year in my life. As I’ve moved through this really strange and pivotal year in my own life, the word that keeps coming back to me over and over again is curiosity. Curiosity about what life might look like in the future, about how it might feel, about what might change and what might stay the same. Curiosity. My dear friends, can we move through our lives with a little more curiosity? Can we face inevitable change with less judgement and with a genuine curiosity about what comes next, about how it might feel and what it might look like? I can’t say this year has been easy for me. There have been plenty of times of pain, doubt, despair, anxiety, fear...I would be lying if I said I hadn’t experienced those emotions or that I don’t continue to struggle with them at times...but one thing that hasn’t changed throughout is my curiosity about what comes next…and I genuinely think that curiosity has allowed me to explore this year of deep, profound and unexpected change in my own life in a more full and beautiful way. And it has been beautiful, deeply meaningful, and profoundly needed...this year where change was, in fact, required. My dear friends, thank you for taking this journey of curiosity with me this past year. I cannot tell you how important it has been for me to take this journey, I cannot tell you how important it has been to show up and write to you each week, and I am so grateful you’ve been on this journey with me. I hope, as I have, you too can find a little more curiosity in your own life. I am so very grateful for you. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Do you have those places and spaces in your life where you can just relax, where you feel comforted, where you feel stress and anxiety just melting away? So, as I said last week, I had been holding a lot of anxiety leading up to the start of my weekend retreat. And, while there was retreat anxiety, it wasn’t just retreat anxiety. At the same time that I was holding onto retreat anxiety, I also had some car drama and some relationship drama in my life. All things that are deeply part of life, but that also sometimes just add up. I was talking with a friend on the way to the retreat on Friday. I was telling my friend about how I was feeling, and how I felt a bit overwhelmed and tired, and how it was hard going into a weekend retreat in that state. There were a few tears involved on my part, and a general state of exhaustion conveyed in my conversation. I got to the retreat center, parked my car in front of the house, saw my favorite tree, got out of the car to start unpacking and suddenly, unexpectedly, all that stress, exhaustion, anxiety just melted away. It just melted away. I got my phone out with a massive smile on my face, and told my friend how deeply happy I was to be there, and I meant every single word. Being there, in that specific place helped my anxiety, my stress simply melt away. My dear friends, may we find the places, spaces, people in our lives that allow our stress and anxiety to melt away. May we know where we can go when life feels a little too overwhelming. May we give ourselves those spaces of comfort and joy. Sometimes we just need them, sometimes we just need a place that feels comforting. I hope you have an amazing week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Today (Wednesday) is the Autumnal Equinox, when summer officially ends and fall officially begins. On Monday afternoon I was walking through the woods, noticing the world around me, noticing the green on the trees, noticing how heavy with leaves those trees were. Noticing the color. The trees, they are just as full as before. Leaves haven’t started to fall quite yet, at least not that I could see. But that color. That deep, dark green of the end of summer, signifying the end of something....signifying the beginning of changes. There is something so magical about the bright green of spring, where the leaves are so light and so bright, where newness abounds. There is a lightness and a freshness, the world around is stunning, I can hardly take my eyes off it. But equal in magic is that dark green of the end of summer, when the leaves are in their final stages of life and will soon be beginning their journey to the ground. It might not be quite as stunning, it might be a little more easily ignored, it might feel a little less light and a little more heavy, but it is still equal in beauty and importance. My dear friends, whether you are in the beginnings in your life right now and feeling that lightness, excitement and newness, or whether you are headed towards change and feeling a little more heavy and a little less light, I hope you will find and notice the magic in the journey. I hope you will see the beauty in the journey. I hope you have an amazing week my friends. Love Krista  Dear Friends, This past weekend I had the deep privilege of leading a yoga retreat at one of my favorite places, Blue Mountain Retreat Center near Harpers Ferry. I love retreats. I love retreats deep in my bones. They are one of my very favorite things to do. They combine all of my favorite things...human connection, adventure, yoga and movement, belly laughs and fun, delicious food, relaxation, nature, self-love and acceptance. They are just my jam. I cannot express to you the love I have for these times and spaces. I love creating a space that feels warm and welcoming. I love watching connections being made. I love the sound of all my people talking during that first dinner, and the feeling of deep relaxation and joy after our first practice together. I love seeing some folks sit and read and others go on adventures on Saturday afternoon without anywhere to be, without anything to do, without any requirements. I love everything about our weekends away. And this past weekend was all that and more. It was just a joyous time of deep connection, laughter, lightness, nature, adventure and all the delicious food and wine. We had an amazing weekend, one for the books. In spite of all that, I fully didn’t internalize until I was coming home from the retreat how much anxiety I had carried the weeks leading up to our retreat. This was my first retreat since the start of the global pandemic. We had taken every precaution. All participants were vaccinated, and, because of the delta variant, I also had everyone take a Covid-19 test prior to our retreat so we could all be present and relaxed knowing we were being as safe as possible. But, it turns out, the first time back to anything is just hard....we’re going to feel it...and I was definitely feeling it in my body and mind without recognizing what I was feeling until after the fact. My dear friends, can we see the way our lives have changed and recognize that we will be affected by that change? Can we be easy and gentle with ourselves. Can we be a little more understanding when we are inevitably anxious over areas in life we might not have been anxious about before? Can we find a little more love, and a little less irritation with ourselves this week. I hope you have a lovely week my dear friends. I look forward to connecting with you. Love Krista  Dear Friends, Sometimes we all need a little support. The Narrows is a small canyon in Zion National park where the Virgin river runs through. Its walls are spectacularly beautiful, and that canyon draws many people in to walk through the river and explore. My family and I were there several months ago, and the older grandkids, a couple of my siblings and siblings-in-laws and my mama and I went on a little adventure up the river. Our adventure was cut short when we heard thunder and hightailed it back down the river to the mouth of the canyon, as we didn’t want to get stuck in a flash flood. As we walked through the river, my older son held on to my mama's hand, helping her along the river…He held her hand for safety, so she didn’t fall, and also so they could move a little faster together. As I trailed behind them, just enjoying my son helping my mama, I was thinking about their changing relationship. My mama had, so many times in the past, held my son's hand, both for safety, and so they could move a little faster together. Now, as I walked behind them, I was recognizing how in a few short years aspects of their relationship had changed and flipped. My dear friends, can we see the change in the relationships in our lives and recognize that change is necessary and important? Sometimes we try to cling to the way things were, but our relationships change, as they should. Can we see the beauty in the new, can we find the support in the new? I hope you have an amazing week dear friends, I am so very grateful for you. Love Krista  |
Hi, I'm Krista!Krista Mason is a yoga and fitness instructor based in Washington DC. She owns an online studio and loves it! Archives
January 2022
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