How can summer joy be out of balance? Isn’t it what we all yearn for and bask in? Everyone I know sure does! And for good reason, it is a time of light and greater space and travel and… But we also know the summer burn out, when the success of opportune weather and thrilling adventure pull us too far from our need for inner rest and quietude. One of the hardest truths that Yoga teaches us is that even the most ideal of circumstances can pull us from our own Self. Even Sattva, clarity, can be so attractive to us that we are swayed from our center.

We are constantly under the thumb of the Gunas, the energies that hold form, whether tamasic, rajasic or sattvic, i.e. heavy and dark, whirring with intensity, or clear and felicitous, respectively. While we usually think to balance tamasic and rajasic to find sattva, the highest teaching is to know that all three have a pull on us, whether we are drawn towards or away from them, they hold sway.

Children are an obvious example of how we are swayed. As freely and lovingly as we do, we carry the weight of our children, we are no doubt so invested in their well-being that we can be drawn from our own, inner equilibrium. This is not suggesting we need to give up any of our loads– a lack of responsibility or engagement does not mean freedom from the Gunas– but to recognize their presence in the tissues of our bodies, and to take the time to process the required movement towards inner Alignment.

It turns the question from how do I find sattva, to how can I be more honest in how my experiences are influencing me? If we can be aware of the inevitable tugs we become more capable of returning to our true center. Unprocessed experiences are really those times when we bent and we leaned but we denied it, when we chose not to see or acknowledge the weight of what has happened. Have you ever acknowledged that something was possible because the circumstances were just so? It is extremely freeing to realize we can utilize the interplay of forces rather than taking on the authorship of something beyond one’s control!

Over time we can easily lose track of what has moved us and we can become confused as to where our compass points as it is not a direction per se that brings us to the center. It is a willingness to see how far off we move, and how often, daily at best, so that no matter what energies are at play, we bear witness to the open inner space that is stable no matter the pull. The inner space that is equally open to all directions of pull because of the strength in knowledge, that no matter what, one can stay tethered to Spirit within, steady even while under the grip of matter.