Challenge: February 2026

Navigating Challenge at Moonflower Yoga & Ayurveda Studio in Brookfield

I’ll be honest — when I sat down to write about challenge, I didn’t know where to begin. I chose the theme for this month back in November and, oh, how the world has changed since then. 

Both my external world and my internal world are presenting me with significant challenges. Challenges that feel big and scary and, to put it plainly, really overwhelming at times. I almost changed the theme of the month to something else… I wanted to turn away from the idea of growing through challenge.

And then I realized that–just maybe–this theme is existing for me. To allow myself to truly explore challenge alongside you–from a place of vulnerability, a place of honesty.

Because challenge isn’t theoretical.
It’s rarely poetic, and it’s never neatly packaged.

It’s personal. It’s tender. It’s the stuff we’re actively living through.

From Comfort to Curiosity to Challenge

Over the past few months, we’ve been moving through this season together.

First, Comfort — softening, grounding, remembering safety in our bodies.
Then, Curiosity — opening, listening, gently wondering what else might be possible.

And now we arrive here: Challenge. 

In the Kripalu yoga tradition, we focus on finding comfort and curiosity before approaching challenge - so that we can use comfort and curiosity as tools to navigate challenge.

When we hear the word challenge, it can sound like something to overcome. Something to push through. Something to fix.

But yoga offers a different lens. Yoga doesn’t promise us a life without difficulty. If anything, yoga assumes life will stretch us–physically, mentally, and spiritually.

In The Yoga Sutras, the great sage Patañjali names the kleshas – the experiences that cause suffering – as part of the human experience. These kleshas — fear, attachment, aversion, ego, forgetting who we really are —  are not flaws, and they are not failures. They are places where we get to practice deeply what it means to come home to ourselves.

The Wisdom of the Mud

There’s a teaching from Zen Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh that I come back to often: “No mud, no lotus.” (In fact, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering is one of my more returned to books on spirituality.)

The beautiful lotus flower takes root in muddy waters. The lotus flower doesn’t grow in spite of the mud; it grows because of it. The mud is what nourishes it, holds it, and makes blooming possible.

In the same way, the hard seasons of our lives — when the kleshas take hold through uncertainty, grief, not-knowing — are often what shape us most deeply. These seasons aren’t obstacles to growth but the very ground growth takes root in.

Compassion Amidst Challenge

Sometimes we think that if we were practicing enough, healing enough, growing enough… things wouldn’t feel so hard.

But what if challenge isn’t a sign we’re off path? What if it is the path? What if this is where the practice becomes real?

Not just the shapes on our mats, but the way we speak to ourselves when we’re overwhelmed. The way we soften instead of shut down. The way we ask for help. The way we stay.

This is where compassion becomes more than an idea–it becomes something we live.

Compassion might look like:

• choosing the gentler pose variation in class

• canceling plans and resting

• crying without trying to “fix” it

• setting a boundary

• saying, “this is hard right now”

It might look like simply placing a hand on your heart and breathing. Staying with yourself. Not abandoning yourself. Again and again.

Finding Joy through Santosha

There’s a word in yoga philosophy I keep coming back to lately: santosha — contentment.

Santosha is not about pretending everything is okay, or forcing positivity. It is the quiet, steady okay-ness underneath it all.

Patañjali teaches that through contentment, we experience deep joy. Not because life is perfect, but because we stop waiting for life to be perfect before allowing ourselves to feel joy. We let joy exist alongside the challenge.

We let both be true: A hard season and a grateful heart. Grief and beauty. Effort and ease. All of it belongs.

Practicing Together

If you’re in a season that feels heavy…
If things feel uncertain or stretched or tender…
If you’re moving through something without clear answers…

You’re not behind. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re human.

And you don’t have to walk it alone.

This is why Moonflower exists: To practice together. To breathe together. To hold space for one another. To remember we are meant to walk alongside each other.

Not just when life feels calm, but especially when it doesn’t.

However this month meets you — gently or intensely, quietly or loudly — I hope you move through it with softness.

I hope you remember that rest is allowed. That support is allowed. That joy is still allowed–even now. Especially now.

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu ~ May all beings everywhere be happy and free.

In loving kindness,

Katie