A few years ago I had a talk with Joe Cross – the guy who created Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, and shares all around the world now about getting back to health. We were waiting to speak at MindBodyGreen’s annual Revitalize conference in Arizona, and I was going up after him.

I knew a bit of Joe’s story, how he cured himself with juice and got off all the bad stuff. But we were getting behind-the-scenes, and there was something new here.

Doing the right thing doesn’t always stick.

And he got to see this everywhere. Over and over people get healthy. Lose weight. Heal. Over and over we slide back again. It keeps repeating. So we were talking about what it takes, to go from knowing what you need to do, to doing it. Because he said everybody all around the world already knows to drink less soda and eat more vegetables.

So there were two things. We talked about putting it in your body, rather than trying to change your mind through your mind. And we talked about Community. For him this has been the big one. When he has community – when he shares health with the people around him – it works. It’s about being together in this.

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Community has come up a lot in the Strala courses lately. People have always asked, often toward the end of training time – “This is all great, but what happens when I go back and it’s not what people all around me are doing?” And for a while we talked about all kinds of things. Not sitting quietly on the sidelines. Raising a ruckus. Changing the system from the inside out.

And now we’re also talking about Community. Not waiting for the community around us to change. Not hoping this or that yoga studio will let me teach, or this or that community will change how they are and accept me. But straight up creating your own community, by being who you are, wide open, out in the wild.

This isn’t so much about creating yoga teachers.  It’s about creating community shapers.  World shapers.  It’s why the people going out there and leading Strala – in a classroom, a boardroom, or family room – are physicians and professors, lawyers and research scientists, artists and conservationists, parents, counselors, healers, builders, everything.  We’re part of the human community.  And we’re all together in this, supporting each other to do something scary. Reshape this world, being fully who you are.

Because when you are this way – when you create harmony inside of you, when you choose to approach the challenges inside of you by getting more connected and peaceful rather than disconnected and aggressive, when you choose the same for the challenges outside – it’s infectious.

So many times I’ve seen the 6 people around someone who’s doing this in a yoga class. Those 6 people transform from rigid to something very different. And this person in the center might not even know what they’re creating. We can all take that and grow it infinitely.

People all around you become this in their own bodies, their own minds. And you’ve created it. You’ve created a community, starting with whoever is standing next to you, and then whoever is standing next to them.

You just need to have space for this. Maybe it leads to a new job. Maybe all your energies go here. Maybe your current work changes in some way, or leads to some new roads. Whatever it is, we all know it’s so much easier when you have the people around you supporting each other this way.

Connect with your whole self. Move in agreement with you. Choose peace. It’s a strategy that works immeasurably better, for everything.

– by Mike

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Yoga Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

Who’s What’s and When’s of Strala Yoga Training

Our MindBodyGreen community. This is a good one.