April 22, 2026

Deeper Than Anxiety

We're excited for next week! On April 30, Senior Kripalu teacher Aruni Nan Futuronsky will guide us on a session about "The Power and Practice of Presence".

Here is one gem from Aruni's teaching that brought light to our day.

Aruni writes:

Being ourselves is the gift of our wisdom teachings. Deeper than the anxiety, deeper than the creative drive, deeper than the role of parent or child, friend or foe, our essence calls us home. Day after day, hour after hour, moment after moment, we can return, we can renew, we can remember what is truly real; that place inside all of us, regardless of externals, that place of silence and wisdom, always available.

Reading the very first sentence, without having read the rest yet, I had a mixed reaction that I am all too familiar with:

I need to be myself. Yeah, that's cool. That's empowering. Except I'm full of flaws. And I'm not clear. Which of the many identities, and objectives and partially conflicting dreams about myself should I be? Besides, I'm not "there" yet on any of them. And all of my plans for getting "there" are full of holes. I need to put in more work. But where do I find the time. This is really stressful. My chest is getting tense.

Are you at all familiar with this? What is your variation?

It happened beneath the surface of awareness, in the span of a microsecond. A rapid-firing neural pathway built over thousands of iterations.

How many times a day do I run that loop without even realizing it?

Thankfully, Aruni's following words show precisely the way out of that maze.

Deeper than the anxiety, deeper than the creative drive, deeper than the role of parent or child, friend or foe, our essence calls us home.

For all the energy we might invest in the construction of our path and our identity, that experience isn't but a top layer.

There is life underneath that.

There is usually a part of us that thinks that _____ is the most important aspect of our life (for me it would be being a parent, you can fill the blank with whatever that is for you).

That's good. But something deeper is also available.

"Being myself" is not a matching process. It's an experiencing process.

It's not analyzing who I am currently being, deciding whether that matches who I truly believe I am, and course-correcting if it's off. It's moving underneath all that jazz to experience what's alive down there.

Our essence calls us home.

Aruni describes how, as you peek under the layer of frenetic self-construction you can usually notice a subtle pull. A beckoning. A longing.

Time softens, as present-future-past fade in saliency. A timeless moment.

It's such a stark contrast with the invested, driven and sometimes frenetic chatter of our habitual reactions. 

That quiet is the thin river Aruni speaks of. Always there. Mostly unheard. Available the moment we stop talking over it.

Next Week: The Power and Practice of Presence

Aruni Nan Futuronsky, our next speaker in the Seeds of Flourishing series, will help us explore the question of how we can live in peace no matter what we are given.

Most renowned for her long-standing leadership of the Inner Quest Intensive, Kripalu's signature retreat and longest-running "off-the-mat" yoga program, Aruni's journey into becoming a world-renowned teacher has been anything but linear, including overcoming alcohol addiction, stuttering, and surviving experiences of marginalization as a homosexual.

Drawing on her decades of experience in the Kripalu tradition as well as her own lived experience, Aruni will explore practical tools for reestablishing presence and self-compassion.

Join us on April 30. Free. Online. 45 minutes.

If you are registered already, we can’t wait to see you there!

With warmth,

The Centre for Human Flourishing Team

PS: If you missed it, the recording of Mike James Ross' session on "Meaning at Work in the Age of AI" is now available here.