Why Yoga?
As I sit here and prepare for my presentation for an event I am co-hosting celebrating yoga, I felt compelled to share with you why yoga?
There are many that have heard of yoga; thinking they aren’t flexible enough for yoga or maybe tried yoga once or twice and realized that it wasn’t for them. Let me tell you, yoga saved my life.
It was early in the year of 2020. I knew that something had to give. I was obsessed with working and had dedicated my life to my job with no room for much more even though I had a family at home. I didn’t have hobbies, I didn’t have anything that lit me up besides work. My job was very demanding; working all day, sometimes nights and definitely on call at all times of the day-even on vacations. I began to question if that was healthy?
I saw a post on Facebook about the local studio offering yoga teacher training. I rememebered my yoga practice years ago. I’ve been to a dozen of classes at the gyms that I had been a member to. I reflected on how my health had declined, how little activity I had in my life and how I couldn’t even touch my toes to put my socks on. Then I decided to sign up for this teacher training. I figured if I invested in this training it will hold me accountable to my health and my work life balance I was in dire need for. So I signed up and committed to the training. I signed up with the mindset that this was an investment in myself and I had no desire to teach yoga.
Our first weekend of training was an immersive one. We participated in 3 yoga classes over the weekend with one being Ashtanga. This was the most classes I had taken in over 5 years!! What I once perceived as an understanding of yoga from my gym classes turned out to be just a minuscule fraction of the vast expanse that is the practice of yoga. I knew nothing of the philosophy of yoga. I didn’t know there were different styles of yoga. I did not know about Ashtanga and participating in that class gave me so much inspiration and fear at the same time. People were doing arm balances and floating to the top of their mats. I was in complete awe of this physical practice.
Moving forward, 2020 was the year the world shut down because of covid. We now met virtually for the lectures after the weekend of immersive practice. We did not do any physical practices together. The yoga studios were all trying to navigate this new world of being shut down and not being able to be in community with the rest of the world being affected by this pandemic. In these virtual lectures I learned that yoga was not just about the physical practice. It was about the journey within. It was about being enlightened-being a decent human being.
My journey within took me to many revelations in my past as well as my present. It made me realize I hadn’t gave myself the permission to grieve my brother that had passed in 2011. It made me realize that I was just keeping busy to stop feeling. My mind was in the past making me sad, so I anxiously started thinking about the future to continue to stay busy because I did not want to acknowledge how I was feeling. I was never appreciating the present. I never stopped to smell the roses or soak in all of those moments that will never come back to me with loved ones. With the focal point on the future, reflecting back I missed so much by not being present in my own life.
Why yoga, you ask? For me, it offered salvation during the darkest of times. Without it, I might have succumbed to the weight of despair and anxiety that threatened to overwhelm me. Instead, yoga became my lifeline, guiding me back to a place of balance and inner peace.
Yoga, at its core, is the union of mind, body, and breath—a sacred trinity that offers refuge amidst life's chaos. Each time I step onto my mat, I am reminded to pause, to breathe, and to listen—to the whispers of my soul urging me towards wholeness.
What made me decide to teach? That was easy, it was to share this beautiful practice. To help guide and teach others that you can find peace even if it’s an hour on your mat. You take what is your medicine of yoga. It may be the physical movement to become stronger, it may be the meditation to calm the mind, or it may be the journey inward to realize you are a part of something bigger. I want to offer peace, love and comfort to the soul on and off the mat.
So why yoga? Yoga has been a lifesaver for me in countless ways, and I believe it has the potential to offer you salvation in your own unique journey.
