Now, let’s do Yoga
During the days of my recovery in the detox center, I was offered the opportunity to do some yoga classes. I tried a yoga class while I was there and sometime later I took another class, even though I had little to no information about what I was doing. Then a few years later, my daughter-in-law introduced me to vinyasa yoga. Without knowing it at the time, she offered me one of the biggest gifts of my life. I immediately fell in love with the practice of yoga.
Vinyasa is a style of yoga where postures are stringed together so you move from one to the other, seamlessly by using your breath. It creates a flow of movement that resembles dance. With time, you find a rhythm to your movement and to your practice. This kind of practice involves grounding and meditation.
I have an overactive mind. It is very hard for me to stay present in the moment and calm my thoughts. Through the practice of yoga, I began to bring to my daily life some principles, concepts and techniques to calm my mind. I was able to let go of everything that was not serving a purpose in my life and I started to live a mindful live. Even though I have been practicing yoga for several years, there are days where I still struggle. There are days I forget to breath but I keep going to my yoga practice with an open heart and with an intention. I also practice meditation on a daily basis (Sadhana) to stay centered and to connect to my spirituality.
When I first started practicing yoga on a daily basis, I started to feel more calmed and at ease. After some time, I started to notice that I was more focused on trying to achieve difficult poses. Slowly, I started to lose the mindful part of the practice and there even were times when I got extremely frustrated. My ego was taking over. It was at this time I realized that there was more to yoga than just performing poses. I decided to learn more about the philosophy of yoga and to enroll in a yoga teacher training course to deepen my practice.
Yoga teacher training was a deep, intense and thorough immersion into the philosophy of yoga. The required 200 hours was time invested in a journey that keeps changing my life. Through this training I started to visit parts of myself that I had left behind and forgotten. It was at this time when I started to make peace with parts of my unresolved past.
The practice of yoga resembles life. The way we approach the practice is for the most part the way we approach life. In my personal experience, once I realized that yoga is to be lived and not to be performed, my whole perspective changed. When I learned to feel my practice rather than to execute poses, I started to be more present and I was able to make that special connection and enlightenment. I still have difficulty with some poses and there are some that are beyond the scope of my practice. I have learned to be patient because the real value of the yoga practice resides in the lessons I learn for my life while I keep trying.
There is a myth that yoga is only for flexible or fit people. Yoga is really for those who are willing to start just where they are. Learning the poses and learning to breath through it all will give you lessons you will carry with you in life. The time is now. Let’s do yoga for life.
NAMASTE
