Space & Grace: Your job is to follow your Heart
"Your job is to follow your heart." - Jin Sol
This season asks so much of us. It is busy, full, beautiful, tender, and sometimes stretched thin. Many of us are working hard to stay anchored in our hearts while feeling the pull of obligations, expectations, and the noisy consumer season all around us. I’ve felt that mix myself — devotion and depletion, generosity and grief, clarity and fog — and I’ve been returning again and again to space and grace as the medicine of this moment.
In my own life, the energy has been volatile: mostly mental, moving fast, trying to keep up, and doing my best not to take things personally in feedback & connection when my prana is depleted, I'm tired or dysregulated. In times when my energy scatters, simply showing up and surrendering to the practice has been enough. Trying my best to step aside, not perform or perfect, and to allow the yoga to move through me. Letting myself be human.
This week, mindfulness teacher Sean Fargo shared wisdom I'm working on integrate:
Less striving. More space.
Less managing yourself. More accompanying yourself.
Accompaniment — what a gentle, powerful word. A reminder that you don’t have to fix your experience, regulate it perfectly, or solve everything right now. You can simply walk with your humanity, breathe with what’s here, and meet yourself honestly as you go. Awareness. Grace. Space.
That spirit aligns with another yogic path I’ve been revisiting: Kriya Yoga, the yoga of action — Tapas, Svadhyaya, and Ishvara Pranidhana.
Nourishing self discipline- how we show up with a fire in the form of light, a compassionate heart in action. As my teacher says: invites us to tend the senses. Svadhyaya- self study/inquiry- to witness our layers, listen within. And then surrender- to the divine spark that animates us, accompanying the lessons that we are learning, the being with and striving less. In these darker days leading toward solstice, Kriya Yoga offers a compassionate structure to move with intention rather than autopilot. Its no linear but cyclical.
Nature is also teaching us right now. The northern hemisphere is still drawing inward. These long nights ask for gentleness, restoration, and honesty about what we truly have capacity for — even as the seasonal demands pull us outward. Many of us feel this mismatch acutely. We are tired. We care deeply. We want to show up for others and for ourselves.
And in this same season, our culture turns the volume up: holiday marketing, endless tasks, gifting expectations. It’s so easy to get overstimulated or scattered. Yogic philosophy speaks to this beautifully through The Five Kinds of Knowing — dullness, distraction, disorganization, one-pointedness, and lucidity. We strive for the last two, but being in the first three isn’t wrong; it’s simply information. A place to begin again.
When I notice myself slipping into distraction or dullness, I come back to my senses and my breath. A closing of eyes, and attunement to my seat, and then my hands. Their experience of warmth, texture, the simple presence of being a body. Underneath the noise and the striving, aren’t we all just longing to find connection? To give and receive from a place that is true?
This is also a time of grief for many. A time of tenderness, memory, longing, and the ache of what we can’t fix for the people we love. So if you find yourself in a moment where you’re alone but not lonely — or lonely but not lost — place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Feel the texture of you hands, and witness the rise and fall, accompany your breath, your experience. Know that you are not alone. Know that we’re all doing our best to create pockets of light, rest, honesty, and giving — including giving back to ourselves.
Take what serves and leave the rest.
You are allowed to follow your heart this season. You are allowed to need more rest. You are allowed to offer connection in small, luminous ways.
Offerings & Invitations
I have a few spots open before we move fully into the holidays.
• Humberside Loft — Saturday Morning Yoga (a few openings + treats & connection afterward)
• Wellness Wednesday — Online or in person @ Heart Spring
• Heart Spring Health — a few more classes this season
No subbing at Yoyogi this week, but the Heart Spring calendar is open. Full Heart Spring Schedule Here: December Classes - Membership in Dec is $79/month with added benefits. Radiant Health Membership. I’d love to practice with you.
You can also revisit recent insights & inspirations - also at the bottom of the page — reflections on spark, sadness, seasonality, grief, gratitude, and tending the heart through wintering.
If a takeaway resonates, or if something in your own heart is alive right now, you can open this newsletter in your browser and leave a comment. I always love hearing from you.
Thank you for making space for both the spark and the sadness — for grace, space and grit — as we move through this season together.
Here with you. In radiance and rest.
With love & light,
Maya
December Offerings
✨ Classes at Heart Spring Health (Sellwood – SE Portland)
Small-group classes in a warm, therapeutic space. Affordable membership available.
📍 7886 SE 13th Ave, Portland
• NEW: Root & Rise Yoga — Mon 6:30–7:30 AM
• NEW: Root & Rise Yoga — Tue 10:00–11:00 AM - Starts 12/16- 6 weeks
• Slow Flow Yoga — Wed 4:45–6:00 PM
• Ground & Release (Yin–Restore) — Wed 6:15–7:30 PM
✨ Root & Rise Morning Yoga @ Humberside Farm
Saturdays @ 9:00 AM — Cozy indoor warming hatha flow in a beautiful hidden sanctuary. Spots open this Saturday! One left for Dec 20th. $20–$45 suggested- No one turned away due to lack of funds.
➡ Details & Registration – Dec 13 or 20- January is also open.
Online
✨ Friday Flow – Energize & Ease
Fridays @ 8:00 AM PT | 45 min
Pay-what-you-can ($12–$25+)
A mindful movement practice with pranayama and seasonal themes to ground and uplift.
➡ Flow @ Home
✨ Community Circle – Connection & Support
Wednesdays @ 11:00–11:30 AM PT | 30 min
A weekly pause for grounding, breath & gentle reflection.
➡ Join Us From Anywhere
1:1 Support & Membership
💛 Yoga Therapy 1:1 Sessions
Personalized, trauma-informed support for embodied healing.
➡ Learn More
🕯 Root Support Membership
Access 80+ replays, playlists, and seasonal practices to support accessible yoga therapy.
➡ Join the Membership| One Time Support
✨ Free Resources
Centering, Mindfulness & Breath Practices:
➡ Practice: @MayaLakeYoga Youtube
➡ Listen: Maya Lake Yoga- Coming Home Playlist.
➡ Read: Insights & Inspirations- Past Blogs & Letters
➡ Follow: Instagram
Holiday Spirit & Ayurvedic Seasonal Resources. Explore Past Writings for More.
