THEME: The Lens You’re Looking Through
MANTRA: What I look for / I will find / I choose beauty

OPENING
Welcome everyone.
I want to start with something simple… but powerful.
The optimist sees opportunity in difficulty.
The pessimist sees difficulty in opportunity.
And what’s interesting — it’s not that one life is easier than the other. It’s that two people can walk through the exact same moment… and live two completely different experiences.
And if we’re honest… we’ve all been both at different times.
I’ve caught myself walking into a perfectly normal moment and somehow finding the problem first. Not because it was the biggest thing there… but because that’s what my mind was looking for.
So tonight isn’t about becoming an optimist. It’s about becoming aware of which side we’re feeding. Becoming aware of the lens we’re looking through.
Let’s begin with our mantra:
What I look for…
I will find…
I choose beauty…

TOPIC 1 — The Lens You’re Looking Through
Talk:
We talk a lot about creating our reality… but most of it begins with something simple — how we see.
Because your mind will always find what it’s looking for.
If you’re looking for what’s wrong, you’ll find it. If you’re looking for something to question, something to doubt, something that feels off — you’ll find it. Even if it was never meant that way.
And I’ve caught myself doing this too. The lens shapes the whole experience.
This week — when something challenging comes up — pause and ask: What else could this be?
Metaphor — The Photographer:
Two photographers stand in the same field at the same moment. Same light, same landscape, same everything.
One shoots the broken fence, the dead tree, the bleached bones of something that didn’t make it.
The other shoots the red cardinal perched on a branch, singing like it has no idea how beautiful it is, the wild orchid thirty feet up with its petals glowing like stained glass where the sun breaks through the canopy.
Both photos are honest. Neither photographer is lying. The field contains all of it.
But here’s what’s interesting — ten years later, when they look back at their work, one has a portfolio of decay and the other has a portfolio of beauty. And they stood in the exact same field.
Your attention is the lens. What you choose to focus on isn’t just a mood — over time, it becomes the story of your life.
Quotes:
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” — Carl Jung
“It is not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” — Thoreau
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Churchill

TOPIC 2 — The Mind Repeats What It Practices
Talk:
The mind isn’t trying to hurt you… it’s just repeating what it knows.
If we’ve practiced worry, it becomes automatic. If we’ve practiced frustration, it becomes the first place we go. And sometimes we think — this is just who I am. But it’s not who you are. It’s what you’ve practiced.
The yogis called these samskaras. Think of folding a piece of paper in the same crease, over and over. The paper wants to fold that way now. It takes real intention to fold it differently. But you can. That’s the whole point of practice.
This week — catch one repeated thought… and gently, without judgment, interrupt it.
Metaphor — The Stray Cat:
You feed a stray cat once. Just once — because it’s cold outside and you felt generous. The next morning it’s back. You feed it again. Within a week it’s sitting on your porch every morning at the same time, certain a meal is coming.
You didn’t decide to adopt a cat. You just repeated a small action — and the pattern formed itself.
Our minds work the same way. We feed a thought once — a worry, a grievance, a fear — and it shows up again the next day. We feed it again. Before long it’s on the porch every morning, completely certain it belongs there.
The practice isn’t to chase the cat away with anger. It’s to simply… stop putting out the food.
Quotes:
“Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
“Samskaras are like ruts on a muddy road — the more the wheel travels over them, the deeper the groove, and the harder it is to break free.” — David Yglesias
“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.” — Buddha
“Learning to unlearn is the highest form of learning.” — Buddhist Proverb
“You are not your habits. You are the awareness that can notice them — and change them.”

TOPIC 3 — You Don’t Have to Keep It All
Talk:
In Buddhism there’s a teaching about the difference between pain and suffering.
Pain is what happens. A harsh word. A disappointment. A loss. That’s contact with life — and it’s unavoidable.
Suffering is what we do next. We hold it. We replay it. We build a story around it and carry it into the next moment, and the next day, and sometimes the next decade.
But there’s a space between what happens… and what we choose to keep. Not everything that arrives needs to stay. Not every thought needs to be believed. Not every feeling needs to become a story.
This week — when something shows up that stings — pause and ask: Do I need to carry this? Or can I let it pass through?
Metaphor — The Bee Sting:
You’ve been stung by a bee before. You know what happens — there’s the moment of contact… and then the pain radiates. Up your arm, through your body.
You can’t stop the sting. You can’t stop that initial radiation of pain. That’s just biology.
But here’s where we’re different.
When something stings us emotionally — a harsh word, a betrayal, a disappointment — we actually have a choice about how far that pain radiates.
Because we do something the body doesn’t do with a bee sting. We keep stinging ourselves. We replay the moment. We imagine what we should have said. We bring it to bed with us. We tell three friends about it.
Long after the bee has flown away… we’re still stinging ourselves.
The bee only stings you once.
We sting ourselves a hundred times.
That’s the practice — feel the original sting fully… and then make a choice to let the radiation stop there.
Quotes:
“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” — Buddha
“Letting go gives us the freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” — Pema Chödrön
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
“You only lose what you cling to.” — Buddha

TOPIC 4 — Interrupting the Pattern
Talk:
Awareness alone isn’t enough. We’ve all had the experience of clearly seeing a pattern — and then doing it anyway. Knowing you’re about to say the thing you’ll regret. Knowing you’re spiraling. Watching yourself do it in slow motion.
That’s because awareness and action are different muscles.
Viktor Frankl survived the Holocaust — lost his entire family, his manuscript, everything — and what he came out with was this: between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is your freedom.
Your whole practice on the mat tonight is building that space. Every time you breathe through discomfort instead of collapsing — you’re building it. Every time you hold a pose one breath longer than you thought you could — you’re building it. This isn’t just yoga. This is training for your life.
This week — when you feel yourself reacting — take one deliberate breath before you respond. Just one. That pause is everything.
Metaphor — The Storm Before It Breaks:
You know this feeling. You’ve lived it a thousand times in South Florida.
The sun disappears without warning. The sky gets swallowed by dark churning clouds that seem to boil up from nowhere. The temperature drops. A cold rush of wind presses down from above and bends the palms sideways. The air turns electric — you can feel it on your skin, the hair on your arms standing up, something primal in your body saying… something is coming.
And then… that moment. That one suspended breath where everything goes absolutely still. The whole world holding itself… right on the edge.
That stillness — right there, before the thunder cracks and the sky opens up — that’s the pause we’re talking about.
Because between what triggers you and how you respond… that pause always exists. Still. Suspended. Charged with possibility. Most of us never find it because we become the storm before we even notice the stillness that came just before it.
The practice — on the mat and off it — is learning to find that moment… and make a conscious choice before the thunder rolls.
Quotes:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — Viktor Frankl
“The evolution of consciousness teaches us to take a pause between stimulus and response — just a millisecond can make the difference between being right and being kind.” — David Scott
“A quiet mind can hear intuition over fear.”
“It only takes seconds to hurt someone, but it could take years to repair the damage.”
“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” — Buddha

TOPIC 5 — Feed What You Want to Grow
Talk:
It’s not enough to stop feeding what drains you. You have to start feeding what supports you.
Gratitude, presence, peace — these aren’t personality traits you either have or don’t. They’re practices. And like any practice, the more you return to them, the more natural they become. The more automatic. The more like home.
Eckhart Tolle says — in today’s rush, we think too much, seek too much, want too much, and forget about the joy of just being. Being is a practice. So is peace. So is choosing your focus.
This week — identify one thing that genuinely nourishes you… and give it ten minutes a day. Not when things calm down. Now.
Metaphor — Tending the Garden:
You can’t grow tomatoes by wishing for them. You prepare the soil, plant the seed, water it, protect it from the afternoon storms, and come back every day. Not because you’re forcing growth — but because you’re creating the conditions for it.
Your mind is a garden. Fear, anxiety, and resentment grow on their own — they’re the weeds. They need nothing from you. Peace, gratitude, and clarity need tending. They need you to show up, consistently, and choose them. Day after day. Breath after breath.
What are you planting?
Quotes:
“In today’s rush, we all think too much, seek too much, want too much — and forget about the joy of just being.” — Eckhart Tolle
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” — Gandhi
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.” — Melody Beattie
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Aristotle
“What you practice grows stronger.”

SAVASANA CLOSING
As you rest here… notice… nothing needs to change right now.
And maybe that’s the practice — not controlling everything in your life… but becoming aware of what you’re focusing on… and what you’re holding onto.
Because not everything that shows up… was meant to stay.
Tonight you practiced awareness. You practiced choice. And the beautiful thing — you can take that with you into every moment ahead.
Let’s close with our mantra one last time:
What I look for…
I will find…
I choose beauty…