#188 Forgetting & Remembering
What Does It Mean to “Be Here Now?”
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what it really means to “be here now,” as I prepare for the first class of Resting with the Sutras (my new online yin yoga series beginning on Thursday!)
For the last four years, I’ve taught Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras in a very academic way. I love that work. But lately, I’ve been feeling called to teach them differently - more slowly, more gently, more through the body.
In this series, each week we’ll chant a sutra, talk about it, and then rest with it in yin poses. We’ll let the teaching move out of the head and into the heart.
Our first class is this Thursday, and I’m honestly so excited. The first four weeks will look at Sutras 1.1 - 1.4. There is an option to add on Sutras 1.5 - 1.14 in the next ten week block starting in April. (There are 196 Yoga Sutras total, so this could go on a while, lol! But I am taking it bit-by-bit.)
As I’ve been preparing, I’ve had this Ram Dass song, “Now,” playing in my mind. At the end, he says:
“Maybe we have to empty the cup in order to allow it to be filled…
Maybe we can just open to what is…
Because it’s all right here.”
That feels like the whole practice.
Drifting Away
If I’m honest, over the last month or so, I’ve felt myself drifting away from that “here and now.”
In the first two weeks of December, I completed a ten-day Vipassana retreat and came out feeling so clear, so grounded. I committed to staying off Instagram, and for a while, I really did.
Then I reactivated to promote the free 60-Day Sober Girls Yoga Challenge… and slowly, without noticing, I was back in.
Scrolling.
Posting.
Comparing.
Performing.
Hooked.
It reminded me so much of addiction. Like how they say: never take the first drink.
Instagram as an Intoxicant
I’ve been reading The Art of Living by William Hart, about Vipassana as taught by S.N. Goenka. In it, Goenka explains why even “one drink” matters—because it creates craving. It weakens the mind. It pulls us away from freedom.
And I realized… Instagram works like that for me.
When I’m constantly online, my nervous system is in:
Alert.
Comparison.
Performance mode.
All day.
It spikes dopamine.
Then crashes it.
Fragments my attention.
So even when I “rest,” I’m not really resting.
My body is tired, but my mind never lands.
Noticing and Returning
Over this past year, I have noticed I had stopped writing as much.
A year ago, I was writing for Substack every day. I loved it. It felt like prayer. (Some people said it was overkill and too much writing for them. But I really enjoyed doing it).
Then life got complicated. Around June onwards, many things felt too tender to share with the world. I started locking my old writing into private posts only for paid subscribers. At the same time, my teaching schedule exploded. And after Vipassana, I stopped identifying so strongly with old versions of myself.
So I just… paused.
And with that pause, something in me went a little quiet.
Recently, I watched a clip of Krishna Das talking about kirtan. He said:
“I sing, and when I notice I’m lost, I come back. That moment of coming back is miraculous. It’s the feeling of coming home.”
That landed so deeply.
Because that’s what’s been happening to me.
Not failing.
Just forgetting.
And then remembering. Coming home.
Coming Back to Practice
This week, I spoke with my teacher Rolf and told him how scattered my meditation felt. He had assigned me an audiobook to listen to, and was wondering what made it difficult for me to listen to it. I said that adding it into my meditation in each day was just too much. It’s already a 20 minute meditation and when I listen to the audiobook then it makes it 30. Now, I have to rearrange my day around it! He gently suggested listening to my audiobooks while oil pulling.
“Oil pulling? What’s what?”
It finally clicked.
He explained to me that oil pulling is a simple Ayurvedic practice - swishing oil in your mouth for 10–20 minutes. It supports oral health, but it’s also strangely grounding. It forces you to slow down. I’d heard him rave about it before, but it just didn’t land with me yet.
After that call I went out and bought coconut oil and I started.
Within days, things shifted.
Habit stacking!
I returned to bone broth.
I reduced coffee.
I stayed off Instagram for a day.
And I felt it.
My mind began to settle.
My body softened.
I started arriving again.
Yoga Is Now
This week’s sutra for Resting with the Sutras is the very first one:
Atha Yoga Anuśāsanam.
“Now, the teachings of yoga.”
Or simply:
Yoga is now.
Not yesterday.
Not someday.
Now.
Union only happens here.
Presence is the doorway.
One Teaching, Many Forms
In my Bhagavad Gita study group this week, we read:
“To those who meditate on me undistracted, I bring a reward that can never be lost.”
Single-pointed attention, devotion and presence.
Krishna offers us the same teaching as the Sutras. It’s the same teaching from Goenka’s Vipassana, it’s the same teaching that Ram Dass offered in the song that is stuck in my head, it’s the same teaching Krishna Das was suggesting in the video clip I saw.
Be here now.
We Forget So We Can Remember
Recently, during an Instagram spiral, I became really disturbed by world events. I shared this in class, and one student said:
“We forget so that we can remember.”
I haven’t stopped thinking about that. Practice isn’t about being perfect. It’s about returning. Again. And again. And again.
Why We Practice
Something I am currently integrating into my life is weekends off, for the first time (maybe ever in my entire time alive?) This Sunday, my day off, I barely touched my phone. I went to training, to a women’s AA meeting, to a friend’s Hatha + Meditation class.
I carried with me my Goenka Vipassana book (for the first time in months!) to read in my moments of pause today.
Walking over to Bali Buda after meditation class to get some bone broth, I ended up running into and sitting with a former YTT student who had just come out of a Vipassana retreat four hours earlier.
The universe reminding me.
This is why we practice. I think if I hadn’t slowed down today I wouldn’t have even noticed the student out of the corner of my eye. I saw him because I was meeting life awake.
An Invitation
If you’re feeling scattered…
Overstimulated…
Tired of living in your phone…
Longing to feel more present…
I would love to practice with you in Resting with the Sutras.
It’s a gentle yin and meditation series rooted in Patanjali’s teachings, created to help you rest, reflect, and remember who you are.
You can sign up here and join us on Thursday.
And if you’re feeling called to go deeper, there is one spot left in our June 14th 200-Hour YTT.
Save your spot here!
With love,
Alexandra
So excited for the program :)
as soon as I saw “be here now” I knew you’d talk about Ram Dass, maybe my sign to start listening to his talks again.
Love the honesty here. The Instagram-as-intoxicant comparison is spot on, especially that bit about counterfiet recovery. I've noticed it in myself how scrolling creates this exhaustion that rest can't actually fix becasue the nervous system never settles.