Coming Full Circle
I've always loved paths.
Not only walking them, but photographing them as well. A path through the woods, a trail along the water, a sidewalk that curves out of sight. There is something about a path that invites movement. It reminds me that I don't need to know exactly what lies around the next bend in order to keep going.
Lately I've been thinking about paths in a different way-my path back to teaching yoga therapy again.
Years ago, my husband Rich and I left Chicago for Florida. After decades of enduring brutal midwestern winters, I was more than ready for sunshine and warmth. We spent six years there and another year in Colorado before eventually finding our way back to Illinois.
People often say that you can never go home again. There is truth in that. The place you left has changed, and so have you. Returning is not really a matter of going backward. It is more like arriving with new eyes and a different understanding of what matters.
Not long after returning to Illinois, life changed dramatically. Rich died, and the path I thought I was traveling disappeared beneath my feet. Many people who experience a major loss describe a similar feeling. One day life seems relatively predictable. The next day, a relationship ends, a job disappears, a diagnosis arrives, or someone they love is no longer there. The landscape changes.
When I came back, I settled in a buzzing, progressive university town near Lake Michigan. I love the energy of being around diverse students. I love living in a walkable community. I really have one of those granny carts and walk to the grocery store. Most days, I find myself drawn to the lake early in the morning. Sometimes I walk alone. Sometimes with a friend. I take photographs of the most random things. Mostly trees, baby ducks, and flowers. I’ve tried to perfect the level lake horizon photo. I sit on a bench and watch the water. What might appear to be a simple walk often becomes a way of noticing what I’m experiencing in the moment. And it always changes. The only thing that stays the same is myself, my being.
In yoga and meditation, there is a concept called Beginner's Mind. It refers to meeting the present moment with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to see what is actually here rather than what we expect to find. While the concept is simple, it becomes much harder when life feels uncertain.
Most of us prefer familiar paths. I do. We like knowing where we are going and how to get there. Yet some of the most important moments in our lives occur when certainty is no longer available to us.
Over the past year, I have found myself returning to Beginner's Mind again and again.
Not because I wanted to start over, but because I had no choice except to become thoughtful about what life was asking of me now. As I moved through grief, I began noticing something interesting. The things that brought me a sense of meaning were not entirely new. They were familiar companions that had been with me for much of my life: walking, photography, meditation, meaningful conversations, supporting others who wanted to feel better in their bodies and more connected to themselves, teaching, and learning.
I used to go to yoga therapy conferences. And on the first day, I would unroll my yoga mat and sit down. My first thought was, “I know nothing.” Because compared to all the experience in the room, I really knew nothing. And that made my curiosity expand. I learned about others and myself at the same time.
What I discovered was not a new path after all. Life had graciously and quietly led me back to things I had loved all along. Perhaps that is one of the gifts hidden inside major transitions. We often assume that healing requires reinventing ourselves. Sometimes it does. More often, I think healing involves remembering. Beneath the roles we play, the responsibilities we carry, and the unexpected events that shape our lives, there are threads that have always been part of who we are. For one person, that thread might be music. For another, it might be gardening, painting, writing, or volunteering. The answer is different for everyone.
Part of the work of healing is paying attention to what continues to call to us, even after life has changed. This is something I witness often in yoga therapy. People frequently arrive because they are struggling with pain, stress, loss, illness, burnout, or a body that no longer behaves the way it once did. They are looking for relief, but they are also looking for orientation. They want to understand how to move forward when the old way of moving through life no longer works.
A friend of mine once offered very simple advice about getting through difficult times.
"Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot."
At first it sounded almost too simple.
Over time, I came to appreciate the wisdom in it. It is a mantra that has served me well. And here I am again, teaching yoga therapy and mediation.
No one finds an entirely new life in a single day. The paths we travel may not always lead where we expected. Sometimes they wind. Sometimes they double back. Sometimes they take us far from what feels familiar, and sometimes, after gathering experiences we never planned to have, they bring us back to something we have loved all along.
Kim Brandt is a writer, yoga therapist and Pilates instructor whose work explores grief, healing and human connection. After losing her husband to colorectal cancer in April of 2025, she began writing about caregiving, love, and life after loss. She lives in Illinois, where she is building a wellness community focused on resilience and repurposing life’s transitions.
