“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” -Melody Beattie, Author and Journalist
If we could boil down the root of all the anxiety and frustration we have felt this year to one cause, it would be uncertainty.
It is one thing to hit a bump in the road, but so many, and all of which have lasted longer than anyone believed they would made not just the outcome to each calamity but also the timeline uncertain. It is hard to know what to do with your feelings about something when the finish line keeps moving around the next corner. And to manage these events together as a nation would be somewhat soothing, but it is hard to feel bound to our fellow Americans when we are all supposed to stay six feet apart.
In a standard yoga class, whether it’s a traditional Ashtanga Primary or your favorite hot power hour, there is a formula to how the class is structured. There is a little warm-up with breathwork and stretching, some sun salutations to get your blood moving, and then the big hard stuff like the strength-building power poses, arm balances-you know, all the stuff of Instagram model fame. Other strength training modalities often use weights and movement to build muscle, but in yoga, we just use all of our muscles to stand still while we fight gravity. It’s a unique concept, that strength is in the stillness, that you can sweat and want to cry while simply stretching your hamstrings.
Last Thursday I greeted my last client of the night and left her to some privacy to get cozy on the table. Everything was the same as it ever was, but when I came back in the room something seemed off. Then I noticed with a tiny prick of sadness that the light filtering in the sides of the blackout shades on the windows of my room was already starting to fade at a very young 7 pm. It doesn’t seem like we got much of a summer at all, and with dismay I noted that it’s already almost over. Seeing the sun begin to set so much earlier than it had been since we reopened made me realize how much time has passed while I busied myself with trying to make sense of such a terrible and strange year. Presence is a verb, indeed.
If you’ve made it into the spa recently, you know that we have made some changes. After this torrid year of unpleasant surprises and rapidly developing medical research, I know you probably can’t stomach much more change. But Quarantine 2020 afforded us plenty of time to invest in the Lakewood space, making changes that fit our intention going forward. Her trust in the healing qualities of the natural world guided Tabitha to choose to dress Sacred Hour Lakewood like a spring morning, crisp and cool, and adorned the common areas with some living green. By freshening the interior aesthetic, we lifted the mood from one that was dark and luxurious to a brightened one that embraces the beauty of the natural world. Cleveland Hardwood refinished the floors to their natural color, and we lightened the wall color to an inviting airy grey, with a warm clay color that greets you within the treatment rooms. The simplicity and predictability of natural beauty is the inspiration for the new aesthetic of our flagship location, and the healing properties of ingredients found in nature is the cornerstone of our new skincare line, Laurel.
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