Yoga Teaches Couples To Love Better

Yoga teaches couples to love better
By Emily Elizabeth Anderson

http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/2575?print=1
http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/2575?utm_source=MyYogaJournal&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=MYJ_296

Sianna Sherman fell in love with Kenny Graham in a parking lot. Sherman, a
Berkeley, California, Anusara Yoga instructor, had just left a late-night
kirtan (devotional chanting). Public transit was no longer running, and
just as she realized she’d need to find another way home, Sherman saw
Graham leaving the event and walking toward his red Jetta. She recognized
him from a yoga workshop in New Jersey she’d attended three years earlier,
and after they reintroduced themselves, Graham was kind enough to drive
Sherman home. They talked about music and yoga and made plans to see the
popular kirtan leader Krishna Das the next night. That was two years ago;
they’ve been together ever since.

“We had a natural connection from the beginning,” Sherman says.
“There were messages and signals showing me that I should explore it.”
Following such signs and listening to her intuition are a natural extension of Sherman’s yoga practice. “Through yoga, I learned to step into a world of love and energy,” she says. “It gave me hope of being connected to
another person in a meaningful way, and it gave me the courage to try.”

Finding love through the yoga community makes perfect sense, according to
Meredith Haberfeld, a life coach and Esalen Institute retreat leader.
“Once you begin the journey of self-awareness, you become more open to
possibilities,” she says. “You open your heart and clear your mind with
yoga, so it stands to reason that you’d be attracted to another who is
experiencing and embracing the same thing.”

For Yoga Works L.A. instructors Melanie Lora and Sky Meltzer, a yoga
practice not only helped bring them together, but it also encourages
balance within their three-year relationship. “The Yoga Sutra helps us
with our relationship and shows us how to handle obstacles and challenges,
how to give each other compassion and space,” Lora says. “The sutras have
been a road map for us.”

Of course, disagreements are bound to come up in even the most blissed-out
relationship. There, too, a yoga practice can help. “I know that if Sky
does something I don’t like, such as leaving his papers all over the
house, I need to be aware of my intention before I launch into an attack,”
Lora says. “It’s like Hanumanasana: Is it my goal to wreck my hamstrings
in order to get deeper into the pose, or is my intention to create more
space in my body, more freedom and openness? Within my relationship, is it
my intention to have conflict or is it to find harmony?”

“Together,” Lora says, “Sky and I have found balance in ourselves, our
bodies, our minds, and most importantly with each other.”