By the time you are reading these words, we will have passed the Winter Solstice, and maybe, just maybe, we might be able to sense the days beginning to lengthen. Most likely, winter’s coldest days are still ahead, and the nights are still very, very long. 

Alongside winter’s bleakness we have also been contending with dreadful events on the national and global scale. The first night of Chanukah was scarred by an antisemitic shooting that killed 15 people and wounded many others. Beloved director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered by their own son, whose decades-long struggle with addiction had brought him in and out of rehab and homelessness throughout his life. Drug overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45 years old. It’s hard out here, and recent data tells us that 50 million Americans are contending with substance use disorder. That’s one in seven of us!

As a yoga teacher, my main job is to remind myself and my students that no matter how dark it gets in the world, there is a bright light inside of each of us. When we explore the practice of yoga, we learn to move our body with mindfulness, and to perceive our breath with great sensitivity. The self-awareness that we cultivate is a pathway to connect with our own inner light. What I love about yoga, at least the way my teachers shared it with me, is that yoga doesn’t ask you to accept anything on faith. There is no dogma you are asked to believe. Yoga just says, “Try this, and see if it’s true for you.”

While I am not a mental health professional, or an expert in addiction and recovery, simple math means that of the hundreds of people who take classes at our yoga studio each month, some are surely struggling with substance use. When we are in pain, when we feel lonely, disconnected, or alienated, it’s the most natural thing in the world to want to feel better. Can we train ourselves to seek out remedies that connect us to other humans and the natural world? Can we seek to address the root causes of our pain, instead of reaching for something that will numb us out?

The day after the 2024 election, a singer who grew up here, Abigail Bengson, shared a song called “Don’t Numb to This.” It was the medicine I needed on a hard day, in a hard month, in a hard year. I shared it with my students, and we all sang it together at the end of class.

Don’t numb to this, don’t numb it out

Let it all flow in and out

You’re strong enough to feel it all

And keep your heart alive

Stay soft to this, don’t numb it out

Let yourself breathe in and out

You’re strong enough to feel it all

And keep your heart alive

We don’t know what the days ahead will bring, but as surely as the sun will rise in the east each morning, we will continue to need each other. If we practice showing up for each other every day, we can all take turns falling apart! Let’s help one another stay open, let’s be brave enough to be vulnerable and reach out for help when we need it. 

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Joanna Colwell is the founder of Otter Creek Yoga and the Yoga Equity Project, in Middlebury’s Marble Works district. She is a proud member of Jewish Voice for Peace and the L’Chaim Collective. Joanna lives in Ripton.