Awakening Lotus Yoga

the soul & the human

Nothing is more frustrating than someone expecting you to accept what they would never tolerate themselves.

They cross a line,
then expect understanding.
They disrespect you,
then expect patience.

Standards suddenly change when they are the ones affected.

This is not misunderstanding.
This is double standards.

People who lack self-awareness will justify their actions
but judge yours without hesitation.

Do not ignore that.
Do not normalize it.

Respect must be mutual.
Boundaries must go both ways.

If someone cannot handle what they dish out,
they should not be serving it.

Hold people to the same standards they expect from you.
And if they cannot meet them,
you already have your answer.

Because fairness is simple
treat others the way you expect to be treated.💡✅

Grandma’s Knee

When I was a young girl living in Scarborough, maybe seven or eight years old, I dreamed of going to Branksome Hall. My parents were only newly arrived from the UK, and there was no way they could have sent me to a private school, but I wrote the school a letter anyway, hoping that if I made a compelling argument, they might say yes. Of course, that never happened.

Years later, after I had two children of my own, I ended up working in the junior school office at Branksome Hall. My children were older by then—my daughter had been accepted into the school once she qualified—but what I really want to tell you about is the nursery, the daycare for children of the staff, where there was a rocking chair and a grandmother. Every time there was a boo-boo, a need for a hug, or just an ear to listen, Grandma was there.

I know there were lots of times in my busy young mother’s life when I wanted to go sit on Grandma’s knee, because isn’t that where all comfort lies? Where we all feel seen, and safe, and loved, and our true selves are held in a magical cocoon of forever, because grandmas just know how you feel and what you need without saying a word.

THE ADDICTION TO FEAR

We often talk about anxiety as if it’s just a personal condition — a chemical imbalance or a private struggle.
But what if the real source runs deeper — what if our entire civilization has become addicted to fear?

In earlier times, fear was a tool for survival. It warned us of predators and storms, helped us stay alive.
But in the modern world, those dangers are mostly gone. And yet, fear remains — searching for new hosts.
Now it hides in our headlines, our politics, our advertising, and our scrolling feeds.
We fear rejection, irrelevance, aging, poverty, loneliness.
We fear missing out, being unseen, being wrong.
Fear has become the atmosphere we breathe — invisible, chronic, and profitable.

Philosophers have been warning us about this for over a century.
Kierkegaard called anxiety “the dizziness of freedom” — the panic that appears when old certainties fall away.
Erich Fromm said we trade that freedom for conformity, so we can feel safe again.
Foucault showed how modern systems of power use fear not with chains, but with expectations that make us police ourselves.

And by the 21st century, fear became entertainment.
Social media turned outrage and alarm into a business model.
Each notification is a tiny spark of adrenaline — another crisis, another scandal, another reason to stay vigilant.
The result? A society that cannot rest.
Calm feels suspicious.
Joy feels naïve.
We have learned to mistake vigilance for meaning.

But here’s where another idea enters — one I first encountered years ago while studying with Saratoga, who channelled Telstar and wrote The Final Elimination of the Source of Fear.
Her teaching was simple and radical:
“If we are beings of love, then fear must be an alien virus.”

That idea changed me.
Because if fear is foreign to our true nature, then healing isn’t about fighting fear — it’s about remembering who we really are.
Love is the immune system of consciousness.
When we anchor in love — in compassion, in stillness, in connection — fear has nowhere to live.

Maybe this is the real work of our time: to detox from the addiction to fear.
To choose calm even when chaos sells.
To practice awe instead of outrage.
To reclaim our nervous systems and come home to our natural state — love.

Because once we remember that, fear can no longer rule us.

In order to practice yoga, we need to get in touch with our level of exhaustion.

What’s your exhaustion level? Drop it in the comments.