Hi Youthful Yogis!                                       
I was getting ready to do some yoga poses today when I got to thinking about a doctor's visit I had a few months ago. It wasn't anything serious, just a sore throat. The doctor did what doctors usually do...he looked at my eyeballs with a little flashlight and asked me to stick out my tongue and say "Ahhhh".  Then he looked into my ears and said: "Well, you have inflexible eardrums".

Inflexible eardrums??!

Youthful Yogis know that yoga helps us to stay flexible: we reach and bend and twist in order to be relaxed and happy in every part of our body. You've seen Cat Cow, a great stretch for the spine; and Triangle Pose, which stretches the legs, hips and chest.
  
But what about our eardrums? Seriously, is there anything we can do to stretch inside our ears?!!

I was starting to feel  badly about my inflexible eardrums as I headed towards my yoga mat this morning. But then I realized.... there are a lot of different ways we can be flexible. Yoga definitely makes our bodies stretchy, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What we really learn from yoga is that we can change and adjust to all sorts of situations, both on and off of our yoga mats. Sometimes there are things we have no control over, like inflexible eardrums, and we learn to deal with that stuff also. In a funny way, being able to accept who we are, without judgement or criticism, shows the greatest kind of flexibility of all.



Once I got over worrying about my eardrums, I had a great time doing yoga this morning. When I was done, I took a short rest and then I said thank you to my body: I thanked my feet and my knees for all the hard work they do everyday; I thanked my heart and my lungs for keeping me going...  and yes, I even thanked my inflexible eardrums. Because, when it comes right down, I can't imagine life without them!   

Thanks for joining me today, Youthful Yogis. Have a wonderful day and I'll see you again soon.

Namaste!