In service, in shelter
Stay home. Shelter. Cocoon. Stay inside. We’re all hearing it again and again right now, but what does it really mean to our hearts?
Last weekend, our founder Shanie taught an online class that started with a talk about how we can most effectively be in service during this global pandemic. It’s the seemingly simplest thing: just be alone. Just stay inside. The “smallest” act of service—doing nothing—has become the biggest catalyst for change.
And yet, the more days we spend in our homes, alone or with a few select others, the more we realize that this “isolation” is truly in body only, not in heart. Every day we are all adjusting to the reality of living in a global pandemic and find more space in our inner worlds.
There may be physical separation, but there is also a growing understanding of our interconnectedness. There is great pain, but we recognize that it is our collective pain. And what follows is that healing must be collective, too.
We see it now: we ourselves are not well if we cannot all be well. When we take care of ourselves, we take care of everyone on the planet. But when we abandon ourselves, there’s no way we can take care of others. When we endanger just one other being, we’re potentially harming tens of thousands of others.
And when someone stands up to help, twenty more people feel empowered to help. When one person shows up with vulnerability, asks for support, shares their struggle, we noticing something: that person has just enabled all of their friends and all of their friends’ friends to show up with vulnerability, too. Like ripples on water.
At YFAM, we want to show up for you and our students in radical vulnerability, so that we all feel empowered to be openly authentic and make change. We’ve been deeply examining how we can best serve in this time, and we’re sharing every step of our process.
Here’s where we’re putting our energy right now:
recording and delivering video yoga practices to our partners.
developing online programs where it works (for example, for youth and seniors).
deploying digital communications to keep our community engaged.
empowering our volunteers to serve and share in new ways.
seeking out and promoting services that are free, equitable, and trauma-sensitive.
lifting up other groups who are doing the work to keep our community safe and healthy.
We’re envisioning YFAM growing into a digital hub for easy-to-access equitable yoga and mindfulness tools. We’re building projects that will bring attention and funds to other non-profits whose mission is synergistic with YFAM’s. We’re building a library of resources to help get through this time. Together, apart.
