I was first intrigued by yoga while working at a gym in college. I was the pass checker who swiped the cards of the members as they entered the fitness classes. During those four years, I always admired the strong and powerful teachers who led the classes with confidence and charisma.
Most specifically, I was in awe of the yoga teachers, who seemed to have tapped into a well of peace even in the midst of living with 40,000 18 – 21 years olds in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania.
It was then, through my admiration of those teachers, that I began doing yoga. I craved the strong muscles, the flexibility, the ease with which they moved, and the serenity they embodied as they lay in final meditation. This is what first got me to my mat, but not what has kept me on it for over a decade now.
10 years later and I have become a yoga teacher myself. I have thousands of practice hours under my belt and while the muscles and flexibility are a nice touch, it’s the way yoga has so transformed my life off the mat that has made me a student for life.
Here are 3 ways yoga has made me stronger off the mat:
1) Connection with my body.
Learning to not only accept but love my body has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Through connecting powerfully with my physical form through my yoga practice, I am more in tune with what I need nutritionally, emotionally, and spiritually.
I know what foods will leave me lethargic and moody and what thoughts will bring me to my knees with fear and despair.
The physicalness of yoga was an entry point for me to heal the relationship with my body and move forward intentionally with how I relate to it.
2) Greater capacity to handle the ups and downs of life.
There is no right or wrong way to do yoga. Sometimes I rock handstands and sometimes I topple over trying to balance in tree. Sometimes I flow through my practice with ease and grace while other times I feel heavy and uninspired on the mat. This is the same with life. There is a natural ebb and flow to life that rocks us like a roller coaster and the gift is to not get attached to any of it, the good or the bad.
On my mat, I have learned to be an observer.
And this practice of observing, without labeling and judging is a lesson that continues to serve me whether I am in the highest of highs or the lowest of lows, allowing my mantra to be “infinite spirit, guide me.” Knowing I am guided, protected, and loved, and my only job is to release and have faith in the process.
3) Being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
No matter what anyone tries to say, holding chair pose is uncomfortable, your knees shake, your butt burns, your arms quiver, and you can’t wait for the cue from the teacher to move into forward fold. Yet every single time you get on your yoga mat you know there are going to be poses that are uncomfortable, and you show up anyway.
We do this because as yogis, we are committed to growth and to development, to a strengthening of body and mind, and we know that in order to achieve that we must gently nudge ourselves outside our comfort zones.
As we develop the muscles of getting uncomfortable on the mat, it opens up the space to live it off the mat as well; to go on that first date, to lead the business presentation, to quit your job, to leave a relationship.
The magic happens outside our comfort zones.
Yoga is an ongoing practice that continues to move, inspire, and ignite my soul both on and off the mat, leading me to live with love instead of fear and action in place of dreaming.
How has yoga touched and transformed your life?
