Beyond Yoga and the Compassionate Stranger

This is not a shameless plug (although it might seem that way). I had an inspiring breakfast a few days ago with Ning Harper, yoga teacher extraordinaire, inspirer-of-life and owner of Beyond Yoga.

Ning's new studio is set to be a place for the yoga community to come together, instead of being segregated across the city into little micro-communities. When I heard about this, I told her about The Compassionate Stranger project and brainstorming ensued. I hope to expand this project city-wide and eventually, world-wide and help foster the kind of community that we would all like to live in. One that is positive, kind and compassionate.

This is what I wrote the February newsletter for Sanguine Yoga to help encourage positivity, kindness and compassion. We never know how something so small can make the world of a difference in somebody's else's life.

Kindness, Compassion and Positivity

On our mats, we wish namaste to those practicing around us. They may be our friends, family and loved ones but more often than not, they are strangers. When we say namaste to one another, we recognize and acknowledge one another and help transcend an environment of self-interest and individualism and create community. This practice of acknowledgement is important on our mats, but is just as important off of our mats. Our lives off of our mats can be fast-paced, stressful and it's easy to forget the simple and important things in life.

The next time we step off our mats, we should remember the practice of namaste and extend it to others in and out of our lives. A simple hello, a smile, or a gesture of kindness to a stranger or otherwise is all it takes to help build a stronger, kinder, and more positive community.

I'm in the process of designing The Compassionate Stranger cards that can be distributed and placed everywhere, anywhere and anytime to help encourage people to just smile at the next stranger that they see.

Until then, keep smiling my lovelies!

Better beginnings

Better beginnings for this project. Lots of big changes have occurred in my life lately and I want to start this project up again with a fresh start that involves as many people as possible. When the project started, it was initially just my ex-partner and I but in the end, a project like this doesn't make sense involving only 2 people spearheading it. If we hope for it to grow into a social movement, then we have to include as many people as possible. Life is nothing without the friends and family that make everything so much more enjoyable. Without them, where would we be? More importantly, can we begin to make strangers our friends?

Tomorrow I will be volunteering at the Good Life Community Bike Shop and will try to spread the message and see where it takes me.

Signing off,

Renee

The Hiatus

Hi Guys,

Not that many people (if any at all) have been keeping up with this - you may have noticed that there has been no activity. After a few attempts at guerilla kindfare to ignite this art project/social movement that ended in fruitlessness I became a little bit disillusioned.

However, this remains something that is very important to me. In my sister's blog I found this quote interesting:

"My poor friends were so lost on their first day into the city straight into Penn Station. Everybody is beelining towards their next leg of the journey and very much drawn inwards towards just getting home. They said that it was hard to even make eye contact to ask a question or find somebody moving slow enough so that they can ask. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of a city and can we start to slow ourselves down if only to pause and smile at a stranger?"

This was in New York City and it just goes to show that it remains a social epidemic that we are so self-involved and ruggedly individualistic that too often we forget to just smile at a stranger. Or when we do, we worry that they might think we're hitting on them or that they think we're odd or maybe we mistook them for somebody they new.

I don't want to live in a world where smiling at a stranger becomes a decreasingly common practice.

In light of this revelation, I might redesign this art project/social movement to be less about doing kind things for strangers and more about just becoming open to the world and a happier and eventually kinder person. Starting with smiling. At strangers.

However, given the fact that I still have a busy schedule to run, things might be slow. But this is something that I really want to do and really want it to succeed. So I'm going to keep trying, even if I happen to take month hiatuses in between!

I hope you keep tuned.

R

The leaf...

Hi, my name is Josh. I was having my birthday dinner a restaurant called Ematei tonight i came outside and saw the leaf on my windsheild. I wasnt sure what to think of it at first but then i thought it was a nice gesture. I was reparking my car at the parking garage down the street where its free after a certain time and i saw these people from out of town driving looking for a parking garage. I thought of the leaf and i told them about the garage and i think they went there. I know i isnt anything special, just free parking but i think the idea behind it is whats important, people are so afraid to talk to others or are just so involved in their own thing they dont stop to think about anyone else. I think the idea with the leaf is a great one, keep it up!

submitted by Josh via email

<