Today is the winter solstice and also the darkest day of the year. It's when the sun in our sky reaches its farthest southward point in the 365 day cycle. At this solstice, the Northern Hemisphere has its shortest day and longest night of 2017.

Several cultures and religions practice celebrations in honor of the solstice. While my culture and religion do not partake in such rituals, I still used this day as an opportunity to reflect.

Our sky was getting progressively darker and our nights longer each day. Today marks the shift towards light, and we can use it as a metaphor in our own lives.

Let today be the day you start to look at things in a new light. Look at people and situations in your life in a new way. Be hopeful for the light that will shine into your life in the future. Consider and experience everything in your day to day with just a little more intention.

In my yoga class this evening, I tried to focus on feeling the poses and stretches of my body differently than I have before. I realized that when I’m doing a stretch that feels uncomfortable at first, my body sends an alerting signal to my nervous system.

It’s how you react to the discomfort that determines if your experience will be pain or growth.

If you respond to the discomfort with a fight back, tense up your muscles, or hold your breath, then it will start to feel like pain until you get out of that position. However, if you respond to the discomfort by acknowledging it, not fighting it away, and breathing, the discomfort will just fade away and never turn into pain, but growth.

This was the new light in which I thought about what my body was feeling in yoga, and I think it should be a direct metaphor for how we look at our lives. When you are experience pain in your life, don’t tense up and try to fight it. Acknowledge that it happened and allow it to fade away.

Let today be the day you look forward in a new light.

Happy Winter Solstice.