Yoga: Your Answer to Stress and Improved Life Balance
What does yoga mean to you?
If you’re looking to get more serious about yoga for health and wellness, maybe you're like I was, seeking relaxing yoga for beginners. I assumed that IF I stayed with that, it would simply provide long term benefit from stretches for anxiety, or simple stretching for stress relief. As a bonus, I expected that yoga would help me with overall strength and centering, but I had no understanding then of the full, and life changing support that my yoga practice would come to provide.
For those of you who have been practicing yoga for some time, you may be able to look back at your life, and the events which posed the greatest stressors, realizing exactly where your practice has intervened on your behalf. How holistically your practice has expanded to support many aspects of your life since. There’s so much more than meets the eye, but with experience we understand that the more anchored and connected we are, the better we are for ourselves, and for others. And, that it all does begin with YOU.
Why is this so important? Because we, as humans naturally want to be part of something that is bigger than ourselves, and the healthiest way to do that is to be clear about what's really going on with us first.
When we're not steady, we can more easily get swept up in any chaos, that is inside or outside of ourselves.
During the times when I had felt like my life was most out of control, it was the literal instinct to lay my weary and stressed-out self down on the floor— that became everything.
Who knew that after nearly 15 years of yoga practice, that my natural impulse to practice Savasana would be my best trick and THE tool that would profoundly support, and advance my practice in clarity and self-care? Still, on my back, I am able to access the depths of my 8-Limb yoga practice. I begin to breathe slower and experience a transfer of the stillness that I feel under me as a foundation, into my body to help me ‘BE’ easier. As a result of this practice and my experiences, I've witnessed how the breath, stillness, the resting of mind and posture, all work in tandem to fortify and inform my whole life.
Yoga is not about the crazy poses or folding yourself into a pretzel. The truth of why yoga works is because a strong, and advanced mindset on the body, mind and spirit holistically aligns you from the inside towards a healthier connection to yourself, mentally, physically and emotionally. Making meaningful time to be still, and sit in that space, you can learn to identify, value and access YOUR personal strengths using the power of yoga and healing whether you can get on your mat or not.
p.s.
Yoga could be the simplest answer to balancing the rest of your life.