what inspires me

i took these photographs of yoga outreach as part of my 300-hour teacher training which finished this weekend. it was a beautiful closing for a rich and challenging sixth month process and i was honored to share it with the other 8 teachers who completed alongside me. everyone's final projects, which we shared over tea and fruit empanadas at our teacher bonnie's new home, were about bringing yoga to new populations. it was lovely to see how much we all want to share what has helped us through all kinds of difficult times and opened our hearts to experience joy.

if you want to see these photographs in real life, i'll be showing them during the yoga activist fundraiser on march 10th at comet ping pong. they will be music and ping pong and lots of good folks gathering for a worth cause.

adam and i saw her on saturday. she plays the harmonium and sings songs like these. love love her.

learn thai massage this weekend at quiet mind!

getting yummy during a thai training

i love a lot of things in this life and sometimes have a hard time choosing between them. thus, i end up doing a lot! but if i really did have to choose, thai massage would be at the top of my list. on top of being a deep and amazing-feeling massage (kinda like big yoga practice, without any of the effort), the energetic practice of it is so powerful! it's based in the idea that we can give metta--deep friendship love--through our touch and that we receive what we give. after giving a massage, i feel totally open, grateful and full of good vibes.

i've been teaching more and more workshops these days and it's been an amazing experience! people go from knowing nothing about the practice to giving a 40 minute massage within two hours. it's beautiful to witness!

i'm teaching a workshop at quiet mind yoga this sunday from 1:30-3:30pm. there are open slots still left so i'd love for you to join in and experience thai for yourself. let me know at gracy.obuchowicz@gmail.com if you have any questions and you can sign up here for the workshop.

big messy love

sasha has no qualms about love

Here is my latest piece from GOOD:

My parents divorced when I was 5 years old. Since then, I have been in love with the idea of being in love. During those first rough years following the split, I played house, acting out my fantasy of a happy family headed by a mom and dad. They slept in the same bed, laughed a lot, and never fought. I dropped the game as I got older, but every movie plot and book story line from then on perpetuated the fantasy.

Valentine’s Day encourages us to romanticize romance—to shoehorn our real relationships into the message of a pre-printed card, the vision of a bouquet of roses, the expectation of a diamond ring. But beneath the commercialization, the yearly ritual also affords us an opportunity to reflect on what love really means. After spending years searching for a perfect love, I’ve learned that to me love means embracing difference, discomfort, and struggle as much as it does the rosy version.

Expand your definition. My favorite definition of love comes from environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill. “Love is not a fluffy thing,” Hill says. “It’s got edges and teeth. Love refuses to play small or sell out.”

This comes from a woman who lived for two years at the top of an ancient redwood tree to protest logging. She’s said that in order to keep herself sane up there, she prayed for all the people she loved. After a while, she ran out of loved ones. So she prayed for the people she didn’t love, the people who threatened her life. She found that loving these people was not only possible, but that this deep forgiveness compels her to continue her work.

What Hill is talking about is that big, universal love—not exactly something you can buy a card about. But I think it’s helpful to translate this to our personal relationships. Romantic love can wax and wane, but holding this big love reminds me of what is most important in life.

Ground love in reality. Even before I started dating, I already knew the type of guy I wanted to be with: tall, passionate, deeply sensitive. When I started looking for him, I was good at the flirtation and the frantic, romantic beginnings, but I buckled under the pressure of making things stay that way. The first sign of flaw in my partner made me desperate for escape.

This summer, while I was photographing a Rhode Island wedding, something big clicked. The couple had been together for 15 years, since meeting at their Jewish summer camp while they were both in braces. The bride gave a speech about how much she and her husband loved each other for their strengths. She went on to say that as wonderful as this was, the most meaningful part of their relationship was that they could also love each other for their weaknesses.

Instead of making love an abstract concept or something you have to search out and find, start to practice it today as best you can. Enjoy what you have. If you don’t have a partner, let your love for you family, your best friend, or yourself be big and imperfect.

Take your time. When I shipped off to Peru to join the Peace Corps, I fell in love with a sweet-eyed, guitar-playing local man. The connection was immediate: we met, chatted, and fell in love within the course of a weekend. I had been restlessly single for six years prior, and had built up the fantasy of what being in love should feel like: intense, perfect, visceral. It was a long-distance relationship, so our every meeting took on a dreamy tone. We walked on the beach, laid in bed for hours listening to music, and talked about traveling, spirituality, and having meaning in life. We looked calm and beautiful in every photograph.

But after a while, we crashed. He got a new job and couldn’t visit or call as much. I started getting jealous and needy for his attention. The more I wanted him, the more he pulled away. We spent the next year rotating through a painful series of breakups and reunions.

When I went on my first date with my current boyfriend, Adam, we ate cookies and took a humid walk in the park. We chatted the whole time, but it didn’t feel like much more than a nice conversation. I had finally started feeling good about my single life, and every date contender had to face off against my ability to stream 30 Rock on Netflix.

He sent me a sweet text message later in the evening to tell me he had fun. I decided to give him another chance. On our next date, over a big bowl of noodles, I felt a quiet stirring in my heart that maybe this was something. It was such a small voice that whispered “this one!” that I am surprised I even heard it.

Get uncomfortable. I’m coming up on two years with Adam. He is stable, supportive and fun to be with (he is also tall, passionate, and deeply sensitive in the goofiest way imaginable). But our relationship is so far from what I had imagined love to be. We have lots of sweet times, but we also have the moments where I feel bloated after eating too much dessert or he is withdrawn and worried about money, or we sit across from each other at dinner with nothing obvious to say. These feel hard to deal with and always make me afraid that something is terribly wrong. But they pass.

A few years ago, two wise, married yogis gave me a piece of advice. They told me that while it’s essential to have honest intimacy in a relationship, it’s just as essential that your partner earns the right to see your struggle. Before Adam, I thought it was good luck or good breeding or even good karma that led to being in a satisfying relationship. It didn’t occur to me that loving another person is essentially an exercise in being ok with being uncomfortable with someone you care about, and not holding a grudge about it.

another beautiful yoga dance

simple not easy

nana turns 90!

i have ten minutes until i need to step out into a rainy afternoon and take a yoga class and then assist another. it's not enough time to really say anything except hello and that i miss writing! or maybe there is. i can tell you that good things are in the air and that it was super sweet to celebrate my nana's 90th birthday party with a big pink cake and lots of speeches a couple of weekends ago. also, that it's fun to dance to live reggae on a tuesday night at patty boom boom's and that it's hard, good work to keep your heart open to the people you love. oh and i can recommend this new years post from chrissy carter and the idea that just because something is simple and intellectually understood does not make it easy to do. i keep telling myself that about my yoga practice and the more i say it, the more it radiates out to the rest of my life. just because i know i should love with my whole dang heart and live out my dreams to their fullest and never waste time getting angry does not mean that it's my instinct to do it. that's what i love about writing here. it's a chance for me--as many times as i do forget-- to remember. even if it's only for ten sweet minutes.