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The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

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Dear Dr. Date,I mo…

Dear Dr. Date,
I moved back home to Minnesota and returned to school after spending time away, working as an actor and print model in New York City. Upon returning, I found that my network of friends had all but disappeared, which was disappointing, because when I needed them most, they weren’t there. Even my girlfriend, who I attempted to maintain a fairly close relationship with while gone, had evidently moved on and was much too busy with her new group of friends to pay attention to me. I was distraught! My social world was gone!
I spent many lonely months wallowing around, feeling sorry for myself, until one day I was rummaging around my favorite bookstore and came across a flyer advertising a yoga class. I had no idea what it was about, but I registered for it anyway, just for something to do to get my mind off of feeling blue.
Registering for the class was one of the best — and fortunate — things I’ve ever done for myself. It was through these yoga classes that I began to feel better emotionally and ultimately develop a greater understanding of who I was and how I related to those around me. My feelings of loneliness and despair also became tools that led me to discover a genuine happiness that was buried within. The great thing is that we all have the ability to feel that genuine happiness, no matter what our situation is in life.
There are many ways and paths to true inner peace. For me, yoga was the way I came into contact with it. And there beside me, helping me along on the discovery, were my teachers and fellow classmates. They have become my TRUE friends.
— B
Why don’t more of us make this same realization? You make it sound so simple. Sign up for yoga and — Boom! — discover inner happiness. While I’m sure that yoga is wonderful, I think the real lesson we can all learn from your story is that when you’re down, you have to do things to get yourself back up again. What you went through is the healthy process of recovery.
You can substitute just about any healthy activity for yoga and reap great personal rewards. What interests me more were the events leading up to the yoga class.
The crucial part of your recovery was that your mind was open when you registered for the class. We judge too much. What’s worse, we let other people and the media make our judgments for us. Is yoga dumb? I have my ignorant suspicions, but in reality I have no idea.
Think about how much we trash things we really don’t know anything about. If you ever find yourself in a blue spot, the first step to turning things around is to quit judging other people and other things.

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