Connection as a Practice

Connection wasn’t always something I truly understood. In fact, for a long time, it was more of a concept to me. It was something I could talk about or think about, but not something I actually experienced. 

The concept of connection is knowledge. My experience of connection is wisdom. I've learned the difference between knowledge and wisdom through my connection to my yoga practice. 

Before I found yoga (or should I say before yoga found me?) I lived quite disconnected and distracted. I was caught in the cycles of active addiction that kept me separated from myself and from life around me. When I got sober almost 10 years ago, that sense of connection began to return little by little. I started to feel more like myself. But even in a new chapter of life I still carried a lot of old habits that kept me in my head. I was still detached from my body and would often try to bypass unpleasant emotions in the present moment versus witnessing and feeling them fully.

Thankfully yoga found me early on in my journey. Yoga first found me while I was in rehab. A yoga teacher would come to the treatment center on Tuesdays and Fridays to teach us a beginner friendly gentle yoga class. My body was flexible from my dance and performance background, so I could do all the positions with little to no effort. Because of this, my mind created a narrative back then about "how good I was at this whole yoga thing" which made me want to keep going to the classes when offered.

I would move through the postures and breathe deeply like the teacher guided us to do... not realizing that by doing so I was actually forming connections with my body and my breath. Connections that were new. Connections that led me to a better relationship with myself. Connections that taught me what it means to listen to my body. Connections that taught me how I can communicate with my body through my breath and how breath communicates with me through my body.

Even though I could get my body into shapes, I had to learn what it meant to use my full body to experience each posture with presence, steadiness, and a mix of effort and ease. It's so interesting how I can see it so clearly now, but back then it was all just a concept and I was piecing together the experiences to help me understand what yoga really is - connection.

The Sanskrit word yoga means union, joining together, connection. So quite literally yoga is connection. We often associate yoga with certain practices like postures, breathing techniques or meditation. But what if these are practices that are actually helping us to understand the concept of yoga? With that perspective, it brings a follow up question to my mind - If I understand and embody the concept of yoga through experience and wisdom, then is it really a practice anymore? Or is it just connection?

I think the practices of postures, intentional breathing, meditation and mindfulness are all valuable and important. They nurture our relationship with the concept of connection - with yoga. I also think it's valuable to zoom out to consider how you are creating a relationship with connection outside of a yoga class.

When yoga found me, something shifted. Physical postures of yoga became a doorway for me to begin feeling again, to experience what connection truly meant. For the first couple years, yoga helped me connect to my physical body. I had danced and performed before, so I was familiar with movement, but yoga was completely different. My practice wasn’t about performance or perfection. My practice invited me inward. Through steady breath and mindful movement, I learned more about myself.

That information I learned through practicing physical postures and mindful movement helped guide me in my daily life to reduce pain and inflammation in my physical body. I started making better choices to create a better ecosystem in my physical body. I drank more water. I ate better quality food. I started being more intentional about the products I was consuming and using on my skin. This became more clear through experience and practice: my body is a temple and I wanted to keep it clean and treat it with respect.

That physical connection to my body also led me to my breath.. which has been another bridge to myself. Breath became a messenger. an anchor, a steady rhythm that reminded me I was alive, here, and whole. It would communicate to me how I was feeling in that moment. It gave me a way to communicate with my body. From awareness of breath, a new kind of connection began to emerge. Something deeper, quieter, and more intuitive.

Intuition is one of those words that I feel gets thrown around in conversation or may be used very vaguely in a yoga class, but I think it only starts to make sense when we experience it directly. To me, intuition is a felt connection between the body and breath. This is a sensitivity that allows you to notice shifts in your environment or sense what you might need in that moment. It’s a relationship with yourself that develops over time, through consistent connection, compassion and care.

The same goes for intention. Maybe you've heard these statements before: "Set an intention for your practice"  or "Live with intention"... but what does that really mean? For me, it’s become about pausing more often and asking these questions: "Is this how I want to use my time and energy right now? Is this action aligned with my values?" Intention is connection in action. It’s how we bring awareness into what we do, rather than simply moving through old patterns on repeat.

Lately, I’ve also been reflecting on my connection with nature. The more I observe and learn about the world around me, the more I realize how interconnected everything is. Every organism.... whether it’s a dung beetle, an octopus, a praying mantis, a marsupial, or a bird THEY ALL play an essential role in maintaining balance. There’s a quiet wisdom in how nature orchestrates itself, how each being instinctively plays out its purpose within the greater whole.
The same may be true for us. When we practice connection within ourselves, with our breath, with one another, and with the earth, maybe we can sense our place in that larger web. We can start to live more aligned with what’s important, more aware of how our choices affect our lives and everything around us.

To me, connection isn’t a one-time understanding that I can come to and then just move on to the next concept. I believe that it’s something we practice daily until it becomes embodied. Every breath, every choice of presence, is a way of saying: I’m here. I’m connected.

At Lotus Pond, we offer many ways of practicing connection. Ways for you to experience the concept so that you can carry it with you into the rest of your life. I see this concept come to life right before my eyes in the quiet moments before a class begins, in the laughter I hear on the front porch, in the presence amongst family and friends sharing a meal on the grounds. My wish for you, for all of us, is that we prioritize the practice of connection and continue making choices that align with what is most important to us.

The community at Lotus Pond reminds me that connection isn’t something we necessarily have to find alone and that maybe it’s actually something we create and nurture together. Every time you show up and share your time and energy, you become part of that living web of connection. Thank you for being an important part of our Lotus Pond ecosystem.


What are your thoughts about the practice of connection? share a comment or email me directly at [email protected]


With humility and gratitude,
​
Katie Beene