Scaffolding? What’s yours?
What holds you together?
For me it’s yoga, I teach it, practise, try to live it, read about it, learn from it and about it. I dream of doing it in beautiful places, of achieving longer breaths and pretty shapes, of easing into stretches & powerful balances. Yup yoga is my scaffolding. It holds me together when life is good, tough, busy or boring! It provides ambition and consolation, a safe place and a constant challenge. 
We all need focus, a hobby, a purpose, a goal. With nothing to focus our mind upon it has a tendency to wander & like a toddler, a wandering mind is usually causing trouble & finding those poisonous things you thought you’d hidden well.
I bought this for myself on my last visit to Ibiza and of all the meaningful phrases this is the one that meant the most to me. Every day I meet the sad, the broken and the anxious and for many it is because they are missing one of these three statements.
Sometimes when I meditate I focus on one of these statements.
We all need someone to love, and that person needs to be ourself …. someone else is a bonus
Something to hope for…maybe a dream or ambition, maybe just an end to the ironing pile or the weeding! These aims can be transient or small, or huge and taking a lifetime…but they need to exist and be a conscious thought. Life without purpose is not often a happy one. We all need hope. 
Plus I think we need something to do. Boredom is a serious depressant! Maybe this is your work, your children, or a hobby….an activity or pleasure we can lose ourself in, this may change through our lifetime. For me, my hobbies have changed as I have aged; I was a horsey teenager now I’m a yogi. In between I bounced but never stuck to a few different activities, probably only keeping my love of books as a constant. Television isn’t to be counted as, in my opinion, a hobby needs to require activity…of mind or body.
To me yoga is the one activity that gives us connection to ourself; encouraging self love, something to do; as it’s a lifetime practice throughout which we are continually learning, and something to hope for. For yoga is about strength, flexibility in mind as well as body, and hope. Obviously yoga classes are a great place to start, discovering or building on yoga as a hobby. Yoga workshops and yoga holidays and retreats are also amazing opportunities to deepen your understanding, of yourself as well as your yoga. So maybe if you’re feeling unsupported, in need of building up, then look at these three things in your life….someone to love, something to do and something to hope for…for then you may be truly happy!
My next blog will be about how yoga can help us enjoy our other hobbies more!