I<\/span>t was not intentional. My mother did not make me do it. It just happened.<\/p>\n The year I turned 50 was about the time I needed another outlet. I had a career and a full-time job. My kids were teenagers. My husband was also working. I was done with silk flower arranging or financial planning classes. I wanted something more than weekly evening adult education classes.<\/p>\n I joined a local women\u2019s gym and did not really care for or have the discipline needed to use fitness equipment successfully. I started taking their yoga classes instead.<\/p>\n Yoga was something that overall felt surprisingly good and kept my athletic body intact. The problem was that the instructor \u2013 not sure why it was a male in a gym for women led the same class every session. That became boring.\nBack to the town\u2019s parks and recreation catalog, lo and behold, you could sign up for an evening yoga series offered at one of the elementary schools in town. Bingo! Thus began my lifelong love affair with yoga and the yogic life.<\/p>\n This instructor was at least 10 years my senior. She recently received her teacher training certification and cared deeply about the well-being of class participants. She hosted a gathering at home in a nearby lake community every semester. The thing that got to me about this yoga class was that every time I left the class, I felt better than when each class began.<\/p>\n I wanted more, and to find out what about yoga made me feel better. The search began to find good yoga teacher training near me that could accommodate my schedule. And so it was that at age 56, I discovered yoga in a new way. The integration of mind, body, and spirit fit in so naturally to who I was and had always been.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the relationship with my husband became intolerable. He was seeing someone he had found through the internet. And though I acknowledge that multiple influences led to our relationship\u2019s demise, this was the final limit.\nSometimes, you must respect, rather than resist, the universe\u2019s synchronicity. I struggled with feelings of betrayal and shame that I had to get a divorce, which I did.<\/p>\n In some ways, yoga teacher training became my salvation. My fellow students and I formed bonds like a family. We became a small community of our own, led by current-day instructors, a chockful curriculum, and wisdom. This all was imparted to us from the literature, scriptures, and practices transferred through many generations of people and ancient masters.<\/p>\n Synchronicity seems to have been present throughout my lifetime \u2013 I have only to recognize it. Within a couple of months following the divorce, I went to listen to a backyard talk in a town in the next county that had been advertised in the local newspaper.<\/p>\n It was a sizzling summer day, and as we waited for the speaker to emerge from the home, I wondered about the people in the hot sun around me. They seemed much older than me, yet they were calm, collected, and patient, not proliferating in sweat as I was. I repeatedly went to the carafes of lemon water in pitchers set out on the table in the back and returned to my seat.<\/p>\n The title of the presentation was \u201cSacred Link,\u201d and the presenter was Pandit Rajmani Tigunait of the Himalayan Institute (HI) in Honesdale, PA. The idea of people linking throughout the world had always held great interest for me. After all, I was a child of the 60s when hope seemed to spring eternally. The notion there were still people interested in this topic decades later was fulfilling, inspiring, and exhilarating.<\/p>\n So that fall, I began visiting and learning from experiences at HI, which started with a no-charge weekend in mid-November, recognizing the 10th anniversary of its founder, Swami Rama, leaving his body. This happened to occur on my deceased mother\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n After becoming certified as a yoga instructor, although I never sought to teach, I wanted to share the knowledge and benefits I was receiving. I volunteered at work for lunchtime sessions, and when a friend opened her ayurvedic spa and sought instructors, I was there. That was more than 15 years ago.<\/p>\n Since then, I have continued practicing, studying, learning, and teaching. Now, I am also certified as an Ayurveda Yoga Specialist, and to instruct Chair Yoga, Meditation, and Triaxial Yoga. I have taught youngsters in afterschool programs, middle-aged folks, and oldsters like me. I have conducted wellness programs that introduce and reinforce ancient practices that can benefit those who practice today.<\/p>\n Yoga has allowed me to experience a different, broader spirituality unlike any I have known. My advice to seekers of well-being is to be observant, identify and consider your passions, and notice the synchronicities occurring around you.<\/p>\n Acknowledge and include your intuitive observations, make your decisions, and work your path \u2013 however boldly, or take baby steps.<\/p>\n You choose.<\/p>\n Finding a new passion a little later in life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-summer-2025","category-spring-summer-2025-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16252,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16076\/revisions\/16252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ilene Greenfield, RYT, AYS \u2026In addition to practicing a yogic lifestyle, Ilene enjoys bicycling, cooking, crocheting, gardening, nature, walking, and watercolor painting.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"