74 YOGA JOURNAL
Learning to Be
Loved in Tulum
It was a humid sunrise on a quiet, sandy beach in Tulum, Mexico.
Despite our previous late-night mezcal tasting beneath the jungle
leaves, my longtime boyfriend, Anush, had dragged me out of our tiny
thatched-roof cabana at first light.
I adjusted my Beyoncé t-shirt and gray cotton shorts I’d worn to
bed as I scanned the horizon. When I turned back to Anush, he was
kneeling in the sand, holding a typed love letter and a tourmaline
engagement ring.
“Will you marry me?” He asked.
I was so incredulous, I couldn’t speak. Feelings of doubt and
darkness coursed through me, even though I’d always imagined a
future with him: He was the one person who made me feel seen and
cared for and uplifted. Still, I was reluctant to commit.
My parents went through a dramatic and corrosive divorce when
I was 13, but the fallout had lasted long after. Most of the great pain in
my life has come from marriage—and its ending. Marriage is the thing
that has made me most likely to run, and least likely to trust.
As I stared at the man I love, these past traumas lit my body from
head to toe with alarm bells. How could I marry anyone? But, as
I looked at him, I calmed myself down. I silently told myself
something I had learned in my yoga and mindfulness practice: Be here
now. With that mantra, I slowly came back to the moment. With that
mantra, I reminded myself where I was, who I was with—and most
importantly, who I am now.
He waited patiently. I started to cry. Finally, I said, “Yes! Yes. Yes.
Of course, yes.” He put the ring on my finger, and he held me while
I cried. In that moment of “yes,” my world expanded.
We drank champagne and ate fruit in front of the ocean while the
Tulum sun rose, pink and hot on our skin. I could hardly believe my
good fortune—engaged in Tulum at sunrise. In that moment, instead
of fear, I chose gratitude.
I saw a beachfront yoga class almost immediately after—Tulum,
thankfully is crawling with them—and I asked my fiance(!), if he’d liketo take it together. I was still shaking from
the metamorphic decision I had made:
unwavering commitment in the face of
fear. I hoped familiar asana would steady
me. Internally, I repeated my mantra as
we walked into a large triangular wood
pavilion, perched on a hidden natural cliff
in the jungle, overlooking the beach as if it
had been there forever.
Our yoga teacher, a young woman
from Mexico City with a sing-song voice,
instructed us to let go of our fears, to open
our hearts, to experience the beauty of the
moment we were in.
I was exactly where I needed to be. I still
had my dark corners—I may always—but
I could learn to live with them and still
claim the life I wanted and deserve. I could
live in the present and not in the past.
I could be here now, soaking in the jungle,
the ocean, in a magnificent place where
afterward we would eat fresh coconut and
bike carefree down the beach road and hike
up Mayan ruins and speak a little Spanish
and accept a glorious chocolate mole cake
that said “Felicidades.”
As I looked over at the joyful, patient
man doing yoga next to me, the waves
crashed out ahead. I took his hand for just
an instant, and he smiled. And then we
raised our arms together, side-by-side, to
salute the sun.I went to Mexico to rejuvenate, detox, and practice yoga with my boyfriend.
Turns out, it would also be where I faced my fears about marriage.GINA TOMAINE is a yoga teacher and magazine editor in Philadelphia. Her work has been published in Prevention,
Women’s Health, Runner’s World, and other publications. Learn more at ginatomaine.com.