I think we all would agree that life can seem unpredictable and random at times. Often times, we believe that our own happiness is at the mercy of other people and the outer world. We tend to either feel like we have no control and live with low level anxiety always wondering what is coming next. Or, we attempt to preemptively control everyone and everything around us in an attempt to keep things from going wrong. This is where all human beings start but the good news is that, eventually, we begin feeling as if there has to be another way. And there is!

Before we can truly care for the happiness of others, we must learn to live life originating from the inside out, instead of the outside in. Our unintentional error has been in looking for steadiness in the outer world that simply does not exist. It all revolves around shifting to find a palpable sense of steadiness within. Then, when we care for others from our own steady seat, we radically increase the sense of well-being in our lives and slowly shift the world toward healing.

This is what Penny’s Kusum Life Immersion programs are about. You. Your life. Today.

First, we discover what works best for us by:

1. Understanding the mechanics of why we are not experiencing happiness now (how we are unknowingly perturbing ourselves everyday AND learning to give ourselves a break for this fact).
2. Developing immediate practices and mindsets that will begin changing our experience today. The practices are based in yoga, meditation, mindfulness, breathing, Ayurveda, anatomy, psychology and science.

Then, we re-learn what our personal point of balance looks like. This may involve re-evaluating our societal conditioning of what a ‘balanced’ person is. We are given a body type and a personality at birth and then we are constantly bombarded with implicit images of how people with our body type or personality should behave in the world. These implicit messages often throw us off our path, and we compensate for the shortcomings we see in ourselves based on these societal expectations. Much in the same our strong muscles compensate for our weak muscles!

Lastly, we develop our own personal OWNER’S MANUAL FOR MY HUMAN BODY & MIND.

These programs are thoughtfully crafted presentations of the science, psychology, Ayurveda, wellness techniques, energy based work and ancient philosophies that are the underpinnings to what you are doing on your mat. All of the information is summarized for you in a concise and clearly understandable way so that you can begin to immediately live with more clarity and ease. Whether it’s an Immersion or an Intensive, these programs are for everyone and will start from the ground up to give you the knowledge you need to reproduce your own experience outside of the yoga studio.

In this program, we learn how to more skillfully navigate the world, our relationships, our bodies, our stories and our minds in a way that reduces our stress and increases our sense of ease. I believe that when a person relaxes their body and quiets the stories in their mind, relaxation ensues. As a result of our psychological and biological connections, happiness is inevitable. All we need to learn is how to work our bodies and minds to create the FEEL we would like to experience in our daily lives. If we think about our own experience, any time we have been truly deep down happy, it’s been when our bodies and minds are deeply relaxed.

Next, we learn how to create the FEEL of our own lives independently from our outer circumstances. It is completely possible to grow our sense of quiet ease into a more pervading joy and walk through our lives with a deep sense of inner connection.

Once this foundation becomes more stable for us, we can be of genuine service to others and foster healing in the world. We circle back around to what the Dalai Lama said. The very purpose of life is to be happy and as we care for the happiness of others, we increase our own sense of well-being. But, before we can truly care for the happiness of others, we must foster our own deep happiness through practices and habit changes that develop our own inner peace. Without our own steady seat, we are of no real help to others.