Yoga Saved Me!

In my mid twenties I was at one of the lowest points I had been at in my life. I had just finished Teacher's College, but I felt like I had no direction. The first few years of teaching were satisfying. Everything was new and I was working hard to establish myself in my new school. Then, the pandemic hit and I no longer felt fulfilled by my job. Something was missing and I was searching for it in all the wrong places. I was confused emotionally, spiritually, and physically struggling with my weight. Everything happening in my life at the time seemed to be a mess.

I was practicing Pilates regularly, but Yoga was something I put on the back burner because I wanted an exercise that would make me "skinny". I became addicted to Pilates and would work out seven days a week for an hour to an hour and a half a day. Then, one day while I was in the shower, literally, I thought to myself "Why don't I become a Yoga teacher?" I don't know where the idea came from or why it occurred to me that day, but it felt so right. In my own practice, I was so rusty because I hadn't practiced continually in years.

Coming back to my yoga practice felt like coming back home. It taught me so much more than how to get my body into fancy, aesthetic looking poses. I learned that yoga is all about acceptance. It's accepting yourself and where you're at. It is not comparing yourself or your progress to others. It is accepting the reality of certain situations for what they are and not for the story we tell ourselves. It taught me how to deal with limiting beliefs and how to go forward with things that terrified me.

Yoga is awareness. It is awareness of the world and the things that exist in it. It is awareness of our actions and our reactions, the why we do the things we do or say the things we say. Yoga makes us aware of our physical bodies and it's needs. It also makes us aware of our intellectual and spiritual bodies, that is what we think and what we believe. It allows us to truly get to know who we are and to take care of ourselves in the best way possible.

I invite you to set aside 30 minutes of your day, every day and dedicate that time to something you love. We can so easily lose ourselves in the tasks of our day to day lives, so we need to be intentional about the way we use our time. Don't loose touch with the things that bring you joy and make you who you are.

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