Someone once told me that we exist in a series of moments and when strung together they make up a life; and each moment has within it the possibility to change everything. I have been given the opportunity to see this many times in my life. Cataclysmic life shifts or simple rumbles have come and in one single instant shifted everything I thought I was so delicately weaving into the design of “my” future.

We have all seen this. A strange weather pattern, a misguided child, or a leader that has lost their way — suddenly our lives are changed forever. One could think, what is the point of planning, designing, or desiring, when we have no real control? I will confess I am a woman who needs a plan. I plan and dream endlessly. I exhaust those around me with my “new ideas”. I am also often frightened by life and its endless unpredictability. Yet, ironically I have always gotten what I wanted from life, particularly if my intentions were not something like “I want a million dollars”, but instead of a higher vibration, like “I want to do good work and serve many”. Then it came to me almost effortlessly.

The times that I kept my mind clear and heart open I could reach and embrace each experience as if I had chosen it — because I had. That would include the light and the dark. There were many times I had clearly delivered myself into the arms of darkness because there was something my soul still needed to learn. Not in that moment, but today I can say I am forever grateful for those times as I have learned the most from the dark, but I certainly do hope they come with a lighter stick next time around!

For many years I meticulously planned what my life “needed” to look like with a closed and judging fist. Over the years I have slowly released that fist and allowed my fingers to move along life’s canvas so that a clear energy could be felt in the colors and strokes, leaving the details to stay an enigma.

I have found some tools in the deep loving heart of Yoga to help me make sense of it all. Yoga offers the concept of “The Gunas” to help guide our way. The Gunas are qualities of nature to help us understand and move with a bit more grace. Each Guna has an energy: passion, darkness, and balance,and all their nuances. They come in an out of our lives like waves, one stepping back so the other can move forward. All three are equal in importance and cannot exist without the others. They are a perfect and intricate weave: passion can dip into balance and balance into darkness or any other combination you can image. One moment we are happy and the next tearful and we somehow intuitively awaken to the understanding that the fullness of life could never exist in one single dimension. Being the observer of these changes and allowing them to pass through us is how we engage with life fully. I am certain to be forever a student here; learning to try not to define things but instead getting excited about what might be presented next has helped me find my grace in this life.

As we begin to fill the canvas for 2015, let’s do so with excitement and determination as well as curiosity. Can we understand that it is a co-creation between you and life? We must ask, but also open our minds and hearts to accept what we have been given as if we have chosen it, because we have.

By Paula Tursi, Director of Reflections Center for Conscious Living & Yoga