Sorry to burst your bubble kiddies, but yoga didn’t allow me to connect the Supreme Being inside of me.
I don’t feel a connection to the greater world outside my realm of consciousness nor do I believe in the perfect harmony of the Earth.
Much like the other basic white girls prowling the urban New York City jungle, I took up yoga because it sounded like a cool thing to do. It would make me cultured and trendy, while it changed my outlook on life. I started doing yoga for that reason and probably wouldn’t have stuck with it, however there was a boy in my class that kept me coming back for more. By the time things fizzled out with this spiritually in-tune boy, I had already been doing yoga twice a week for five weeks. I was hooked and I couldn’t stop. It did great things for my mind and body, and while I started doing yoga for all the wrong reasons, I stuck with it for all the right ones.
1. Yoga is for everybody:
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing yoga for ten years or are new to it today. Even if you’re significantly overweight, yoga can still be for you.
Yoga comes with many different variations of flows and allows you to go as quickly or as slowly as you would like. For this reason, those who practice yoga don’t feel the pressure to be the best over night and are encouraged to keep coming back.
2. Much like Beyonce, it lets you feel yourself:
Yoga instructors will consistently tell you that only you know your boundaries and only you can push them. You should walk about to your limit, but never go over the edge or you risk hurting yourself. This kind of positive reinforcement, made me want to challenge those limits and forced me to push them gradually.
Over time, I’ve noticed myself getting more flexible and better at things I otherwise couldn’t do. It allowed me to apply the same philosophy to other aspects of my life and showed me that improvement takes time.
3. Yoga allows you to stop and think about what you’re doing:
Yoga is one of the few practices in life that challenges you to put yourself in a difficult position (literally) and then stop, breathe, feel the effort, and only then can you continue.
This is a good philosophy to apply to life itself, allowing you to do the same in a difficult situation. If you can stop and assess when things are stressful and going poorly, you’ll probably make better decisions than if you simply carry on as per usual.
4. It makes you stronger:
It only took a few weeks of practicing yoga for me to sit up and notice changes in my body. The day after I practiced for the first time my limbs felt like play-dough. However, I know look forward to that feeling. It means I’ve challenged myself and I’m getting stronger.
It’s also a pretty good feeling when boys tell me I have fantastic shoulders and ask me my time for three miles (answer: I still can’t run half a lap around the track. I’ve always been horribly out of shape and I still can’t run a mile but I can stand on my head, so that counts for something I guess.)
5. It makes you nicer:
Practicing yoga has just made me a nicer person for some reason. I’m not only able to read myself better, I’m also able to read other people. I pay attention to the environments around me and take time to stop and breathe more often. I think it makes me a nicer person to be around…I hope.
[Featured Image Credit: Matthew Ragan via Flickr]