Heyam dukham anagatam. An elegant Sanskrit phrase from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, usually translated along these lines: “The suffering from pain that has not yet come is avoidable.” Wow, that’s mighty seductive, isn’t it? If we persist in our practice -- reminding ourselves over and over again to be curious about whether something else is going on other than the mind’s chatter -- can we avoid suffering in the future? If we surrender to the joy that feeds each moment, then the next now -- and the now after that -- must also be pregnant with joy? Really?

It’s one thing to love the practice and approach it with enthusiasm and joy when life is moving along more or less smoothly. When you’re healthy, when you’re not worried about money, when your job is secure and your loved ones are safe and well. Yoga can feel like a really fine icing on the cake of life.

It’s quite another thing altogether, though, to experience how this transformational practice can come through for you when life begins throwing fear-charged curve balls.

Even during my most committed and devoted moments practicing yoga, I had some lingering doubts about whether it really would see me through life’s roughest patches. In truth, I wanted evidence. I just didn’t want the rough patches to get the evidence. I suspected yoga was the real deal, but it wasn’t until this year that “suspicion” evolved into “confirmation.” A life event that I feared and dreaded as long as I can remember came to pass -- and I found nothing but blessings and miracles inside the event. Instead of fear and sadness, there was abundant grace and a fresh knowing of how elegantly each one of us is held.

This really is a magnificent practice. Stay with it and heed to the shift in perception it offers. Let it inoculate you against illusion, against the mistaken conviction that you’re separable from divinity.

Then, with ease and grace, you’ll come to embrace the heady metaphor of the lotus -- feet firmly planted in dark mud and muck, it finds the light. And blooms.