(This is a post I wrote last week.)

"If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may be."- John R. Miller

I feel joyous. The Christmas tree is decorated and it glows with an intese vibration of happiness. Yesterday, I felt so inspired by the Spirit of the Holidays that when I practiced Yoga in my studio space at home, I put on KVIL and practiced to Christmas music. It was awesome... In fact, I will be leading a special Holiday Yoga class to everyone's favorite Christmas songs on December 16th at Exhale Spa to share in the joy of the Holidays together. I hope you'll be able to join me.

I can remember feeling this joyous and spirited when I was a child about this time of year, but it's been several years since I've felt this infectious feeling of
joy for the Holidays in every cell of my Being. The feeling probably began to dissolve somewhere around my teenage years, when the innocence of childhood
was waring off. But, in the last four years, I would actually get annoyed everytime I'd hear a Christmas song on the radio. All those songs about happiness,
joy, peace and love. I found myself resenting everything because of the struggles and pain I was experiencing in my life, with my relationship, family,
finances and business.

My journey over the past four years was one of intense struggle and difficulty. You can read more about my experience in a blog I posted last December, in which I share about some of the challenges I faced. What I see more and more all the time, though, is how necesssary the pain and suffering was and how I'm actually grateful to have experienced it. Somehow the joy wouldn't be of any value without the pain.

"The difficulties which I meet with in order to realize my existence are precisely what awaken and mobilize my activities, my capacities." - Jose
Ortega y Gasset

When I finished my practice yesterday I spent 15 minutes in a very deep state of relaxation in Savasana, Resting Pose. When I came out of it, I felt tired and even a little depressed. "What's happening?" I thought to myself. "Why am I feeling this way?" I had just felt so intensely
positive that I even did Yoga listening to Jingle Bell Rock and Joy to the World and now I was feeling depressed and down?

As I was driving to class I called my girlfriend to talk with her about my feelings. Perhaps, the deep state of relaxation I experienced in Savasana, helped to ground me and bring me back to Earth. I felt a heaviness physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

"There is a lot happening for you...so much that you've worked so hard on is coming into alignment," she commented. "For almost five years you've hoped
for your family's acceptance of you and the person you're sharing your life with, and you have that now."

"I can't believe it's been almost five years of struggling with this pain," I replied.

"This will probably be the first Christmas in a long time that not only you, but your whole family will feel joyous," she said.

As I felt the feeling of joy begin to surface again, I thought about the gift of
being able to share in and experience this joy, not only with my self, but with my family. As I felt these intensely positive feelings, I remarked, "I feel joyous and yet I want to cry." And, as we continued to talk, I began to cry. What I
realized while I was crying, was that the tears were really about experiencing and releasing the pain and the unfelt feelings.

"We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full." - Marcel Proust

It is through the experience of our pain that we awaken to our joy. And, as I cried I continued to become aware of how my ability to experience such intense, heartfelt joy, was because of the depth of the pain I've experienced. Perhaps, the pain is also a gift. Perhaps, the only way to know joy, is to know pain.

Life is suffering, is not pessimistic at all, but rather, the opportunity to know unbounded bliss. Maybe that's what Jesus, Buddha and the Great Prophets were teaching us. Yoga teaches us consciousness is Bliss, and that we are pure,
unbounded consciousness.

And...

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain." - Carl Jung


So, it is only through our experiences of knowing the depths of pain that we can open up to and awaken to the deepest depth of joy possible.

"Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed." - Edgar Allan Poe

May we open up to the gift of each moment, exactly as it is, be grateful for wherever Life leads us, and discover our connection to Source in every breath
we breathe, knowing Grace and Peace, as we open up to our true unbounded and blissful nature all along the way.

"Let Heaven and Nature Sing..." -Joy to the World

Namaste!

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