I’ve been asked a few times: “Why do you & other people do YOGA?
Most people come to experience yoga with a mindset of becoming more flexibility. Others reasons, stress relief, health & physical fitness. (all good) This is how I started.
In my experience & over time, a large percentage of people grow into the ‘practice’, eventually having a change of heart for continuing with Yoga.
The reason for the Shift? To cultivate Spirituality & Self-actualization. Developing spiritually becomes the theme & with that a sense of fulfilling our potential begins to bloom.
Yoga, in all it forms, nurtures the shift as it engages in self-reflection, the practice of kindness, self-compassion, & growth toward greater awareness, to name a few.
The health benefits of Yoga, well they are very real, my friends. With time yoga can increase flexibility, improve balance & lower blood pressure, decrease cholesterol, stress hormones, depression & anxiety, etc.
Our brains & bodies like to learn new things. Yoga is best at providing healthy creative-interaction ways to keep our brain young – firing up new pathways. Yoga helps the brain grow, like the thousand petal lotus.
As a result, the ‘practice of yoga’ becomes so blissful that the benefits actually ripple out – into Oneness. Our true essential-self experiences more joy & happiness, so everyone benefits. Yoga encourages us to feel good, as we seek to be comfortable & still in the posture, breathing, relaxing. Modifying (using as many props as you need) also helps keep us in the comfort zone – think breath-body connection.
Yoga’s aim is to transcend (above and independent of the universe, time, space etc.) all things.
When people explain to me how they want to try yoga but aren’t “flexible enough,” I tell them yoga isn’t about attaining the perfect pose – oh & head stands are not what we all strive for….. Becoming friends with your body, as your friend, is key.
Yoga asana practice draws us into present awareness, being you in the moment sometime with movement, sometimes in stillness – here & simply now. Presence brings us to become genuinely our true self & genuine with other people & in our community around us.
Yoga will change your heart – not just blood pressure. Yes, in more ways than I could have ever imagined, Yoga changed my life & my heart, for the better.
Namaste, Lynn Callisto Pell, Cl.H.