Love Connection

Yoga teaches couples to love better.

By Emily Elizabeth Anderson

Sianna Sherman fell in love with Kenny Graham in a parking lot. Sherman, a Berkeley, California, Anusara Yoga instructor, had just left a late-night kirtan (devotional chanting). Public transit was no longer running, and just as she realized she’d need to find another way home, Sherman saw Graham leaving the event and walking toward his red Jetta. She recognized him from a yoga workshop in New Jersey she’d attended three years earlier, and after they reintroduced themselves, Graham was kind enough to drive Sherman home. They talked about music and yoga and made plans to see the popular kirtan leader Krishna Das the next night. That was two years ago; they’ve been together ever since.

“We had a natural connection from the beginning,” Sherman says. “There were messages and signals showing me that I should explore it.” Following such signs and listening to her intuition are a natural extension of Sherman’s yoga practice. “Through yoga, I learned to step into a world of love and energy,” she says. “It gave me hope of being connected to another person in a meaningful way, and it gave me the courage to try.”

Finding love through the yoga community makes perfect sense, according to Meredith Haberfeld, a life coach and Esalen Institute retreat leader. “Once you begin the journey of self-awareness, you become more open to possibilities,” she says. “You open your heart and clear your mind with yoga, so it stands to reason that you’d be attracted to another who is experiencing and embracing the same thing.”

For Yoga Works L.A. instructors Melanie Lora and Sky Meltzer, a yoga practice not only helped bring them together, but it also encourages balance within their three-year relationship. “The Yoga Sutra helps us with our relationship and shows us how to handle obstacles and challenges, how to give each other compassion and space,” Lora says. “The sutras have been a road map for us.”

Of course, disagreements are bound to come up in even the most blissed-out relationship. There, too, a yoga practice can help. “I know that if Sky does something I don’t like, such as leaving his papers all over the house, I need to be aware of my intention before I launch into an attack,” Lora says. “It’s like Hanumanasana: Is it my goal to wreck my hamstrings in order to get deeper into the pose, or is my intention to create more space in my body, more freedom and openness? Within my relationship, is it my intention to have conflict or is it to find harmony?”

“Together,” Lora says, “Sky and I have found balance in ourselves, our bodies, our minds, and most importantly with each other.”