Bram Levinson

As most people are doing at this time of year, I’m finding myself reflecting on the past 12 months and everything that they have offered…remembering where my head-space was at this time last year and how I put down in black and white what my goals would be for 2010…how 2010 would be the year to see if a career in Yoga would be financially feasible, if I could still support myself and pay the mortgage while pursuing what I consider to be my mission in this life. After a year of hard work and a clear vision, I now find myself at the tail end of what will go down in my personal history book as the “Year of Firsts”.

From co-organizing my first foray into philanthropy alongside Dawn Mauricio, Vanessa Muri and Fanny Poveda with the 2010 Yoga Mala, to promoting the event on TV…from teaching 3 times the amount of private classes I had set as my goal for the year to having one of those classes be with one of my long-time idols, Margaret Cho…from completing my teacher training to co-leading Yoga retreats in Tulum, Mexico & Eastman, Quebec…from getting married (*gasp*) to visiting Spain & Portugal…from bringing my practice to a new level to filming the “Yoga Flo for the Earth” DVD with my partner in crime (and all things enlightening) Jennifer Maagendans…from becoming an ambassador for Lululemon to being flown to Vancouver for their Ambassador Summit…and these are only the highlights that come to mind immediately…it’s been a watershed year for me, one that has set the tone for the rest of my life. Having reflected on and taken stock of all these amazing moments, what I hold closest to my heart and my soul is that I am doing something with my life that allows me to contribute to the people I find myself blessed to be surrounded by, and to the universe itself.

The only reason I do what I do is because it provides me with a platform from where I can offer alternate avenues for approaching life, death and all that is. It allows me to verbalize what often proves to be confusing and convoluted in words that are comprehensible, and more importantly, practical and applicable. I doubt that I will ever be the textbook yogi who communes with Being by retreating to the mountains in solitude and renouncing the householding life…that’s not who I am and it’s not where I feel I can influence society and culture. Yoga, for me, is a system of tools that allows me to live right here, right now, in the life that I’ve spent decades building for myself, with an innate sense of peace and calm, and with a direct link to what affects every aspect of my physical, mental, emotional and energetic bodies – my breath. Being able to control the breath gives me incredible clarity and focus, and it’s largely due to this clarity that I find myself feeling compelled to convey the information that I feel most relevant and insightful…that which actually offers options and different approaches to digesting what we live in our daily lives so that we can have lives filled with peace, happiness and laughter…always laughter 🙂

It would be remiss of me to not thank you all for allowing me to have a forum where the intention behind (and accompanying) my words is afforded a destination. The support and encouragement you offer is what keeps me going, what motivates me to continue to express what I feel needs to be expressed, and with the last year behind me,  I can see with that almost blinding clarity that the universe really does provide, and that when something is pure in intention and deed, it can’t help but be good.

Sending a flood of light to you all, and wishing you all the happiness and health I can conjure up for 2011 🙂

 

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