When I was growing up, I would watch and help my mom construct elaborate Korean meals for her seven kids, husband, parents who lived with us, and extended family and friends.I truly don’t know how she pulled it off every day while also working with my dad at their convenience store. Plate after plate would stream out of the kitchen planned in a way so that the hot dishes would always be the last to land on the table just as everyone was called to come and eat. If Yoda had been there surveying the process he would have sighed, grunted happily and said, ‘ cool as a cucumber she is.’
Over the years, this impression of cooking became the template for how I laid out meals when guests and family came. However, as I flitted about this past weekend like an upset overcooked fryer chicken trying to gather things together, shifting from list to list of things to get and things to do and thinking about how my mom would approach it, that green little spirit popped into mind and I pictured it saying, ‘not simple you are being. Sweating a lot you are!’. I stopped my carriage in front of the canned beans section, looked at the contents that my cart held and pocketed the list as I retraced my steps to put everything back.
Sometimes a hard reset is needed and this was one of those times.
I reassessed my energy and started gathering a completely different composition of items. The recalibration was aided by two thoughts one of my teachers would always share: 1.) Keep it simple silly 2.) Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The wish to be a welcoming host was becoming overshadowed by the expectations I had of a different person and a different time. Both were not mine but this time and this moment was. I turned on some Hall and Oates tunes to recenter myself and chose to go the route where the amount of cooking was low but the enjoyment of placement and some fun art was high- a charcuterie board. With the pressure valve released, a return to enjoying the process returned and it felt cool and light.
As we move through our practices and gain proficiency, it’s easy to lose sight of returning back to simplicity. Sometimes the simple addition of an element like fierce weather, or a piece of news can challenge what we know we can do with what we actually need in the moment. While we wade through this heat together, let’s feel encouraged to keep it simple as we do something great for ourselves in the company of our family, friends and neighbors.
In addition to all of our wonderful classes this week, we invite you to attend Tal’s Sound Bath this Saturday evening. This event is a beautiful way and different way to ‘work-in’ to our practices.
It is sure to be elevating and enlightening!
Take good care. Be of good cheer and sweat, -but don’t sweat the small stuff 
xoxo-
Sharon & Your Friends at TYC
“Yoga is not a work-out; it is a work-in. And this is the point of spiritual practice, to make us teachable, to open up our hearts, and focus our awareness so that we can know what we already know and be who we already are.”
– Rolf Gates