A Yoga Studio Owner's Quest for Love and Connection

My whole life has been a search for love and a journey to my spirit. I started my search with my family and friendships. My journey led me to an engineering university and a year abroad by myself.

Yoga found me when I was just 20. My heart told me I had to share it as a teacher – that it would be selfish to keep this goodness all to myself. My spirit led me to open two beautiful yoga studios over the past two decades. In them I developed relationships with so many beautiful souls. Our community has always astonished me in how loving, open and caring everyone is.

My heart also guided me to move to Glenwood Springs, leave the loving community I grew and sell my yoga studio so I can pursue a new direction in my teachings. I have been blessed to do good work for the last 2 decades. Now, God needs me to do my work.

All of this has been guided by love. I will freely admit that it may not have always felt like love to some in our community. (Many people have been upset at me for many reasons.) I believe this was because in the past, my search for love and connection came from a place of emptiness, loneliness, and fear of people not loving me. Because I wanted love so badly, I looked to you for it instead of looking within.

We have all done this before, unusually with very little awareness that it is happening at the time. Mine was a love filled by my own selfish desires to fill the hole I felt inside.

Becoming aware of my emptiness was the first step towards healing it and myself – leading me closer and closer to my Self, my Spirit.

You see, all our so-called mistakes or missteps are actually signposts pointing us back to our true Selves – back to who we are meant to be.

It is because of love that I’m selling my beloved yoga studio. I cannot run it as I once did. My heart is once again guiding me to teach people in a new way – to bring more spirit, universal connection and unselfish love to the world.

Generosity of love – unselfishness – gave me the clarity to know I could trust our community to another. Only my ego said it wasn’t possible. My human self was afraid to let go, to disappoint you and to risk you not loving me.

My love for you overcame the fears of my ego. I love you so much that I want you to continue to grow and evolve together as a community. I want you to have a place where you can be yourself, a place you can gather to practice yoga and mindfulness together, to have uplifting conversations and to tap into your own Spirit.

I trust fully that you will open your arms wide to receive the generosity and excitement Lucy and James will bring to the studio and to our community (for I will still be a part of it).

Look beyond your fears about what will be different. Instead, look for the oneness that exists. In another you find yourself. What you want for another you want for yourself.

I’ve heard that some of you are afraid of the transition to come. Please acknowledge the fear, know that it is your ego/human self guiding it and let it pass. Fill in that space with unselfish love.

If you desire a loving, kind, compassionate place to practice yoga and connect with others, be the person that embodies those qualities. Like Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

I know you are loving, generous and open. Feel that within your soul, embody what I know exists within each of you and your studio will carry on.

The only real change you will feel will be the growing warmth of your own heart. And that my friend, can have enormous effects on your life and the world we inhabit!

It really has been a wonderful honor to have been blessed to be the founder and leader of this wonderful community for the past eight years. My heart has grown and expanded through your presence in my life. I am eternally grateful.

The light and love in my heart, bows to the light and love in yours.
Namaste,
Mindy Arbuckle