Typically, I’m a cross country runner. I enjoy running six to 10 miles at a time for up to four days a week. When I get into these running cycles, however, I began to notice that my knees lock up and my back/spine lacks flexibility. As a result, I had extra sore muscles and bones, not only from overexertion but from the added stresses of school.
That’s where yoga came in, a form of exercise that has become extremely trendy in the last few years. Although I offically jumped on this badwagon at the beginning of 2016, my mom first introduced yoga to our family when I was in middle school. She talked about the benefits of hot yoga and how her sleeping, eating and stress patterns improved after getting in a really tough workout.
For me, I never used to perceive yoga as something difficult. I only saw it as a way to relax and sleep for 5-10 minutes at the end of class. But when my mom, who was also a big-time runner before yoga, told me she never felt more fit, flexible and relaxed in her life, I decided that I should try to incorporate yoga into my schedule. I wanted to see how switching to a different form of exercise could benefit my body and mind.
I still remember the first time I walked into the yoga studio. It was on the very top floor of a grayish building on the side of a busy city street, and I remember being very nervous. I didn’t know the terms they were going to use, but most of all, I wasn’t going to know how to do any of the poses. For some reason, I thought that if you joined yoga past a certain age or point in the year, you would be late and have to catch up. I almost thought of yoga as school in that regard. I was so enveloped in my academic schedule that I didn’t realize how flexible the whole concept of yoga is.
My first class was at night and with a male teacher. He went around the room and introduced himself, asking if any of us had injuries. He set the tone for the class to be more in touch with yourself, your mind and your actions throughout each day. He read leadership quotes to us while we had our eyes closed and laid on our mats and blue blocks. We focused on our breathing deep into the ground, reaching to every muscle. I had never felt more relaxed and awake at the same time. Furthermore, I had never felt so connected with myself mentally, physically and emotionally – and this was only in the first few minutes of class.
Now, for those like my past self who don’t consider yoga a difficult form of exercise, you’re in the wrong. I’ve done many sports in my life. I’ve danced for seventeen years, I’ve run for seven and I’ve rowed for three. And despite the difficulty of all three of those activities, yoga was by far the hardest.
I had to posture my body like never before in poses I never thought I was capable of doing. Simply getting in touch with my breathing patterns was difficult to do at first, but as I slowly got into a routine of doing yoga four to five times a week, my body never felt more energized AFTER doing a workout. Plus, I left with a clear and motivated conscious.
Doing yoga also transitioned me into a far healthier lifestyle in terms of eating. I would listen and talk to fellow yogis and see how certain lifestyles, such as the vegan lifestyle, changed their lives. Yoga was the first place I had ever heard of someone eating a fully raw vegan diet, which means they eliminate cooked foods from their digestive system, and simply eat raw plant-based foods. I had never thought such a lifestyle was possible until I saw just how physically, mentally and emotionally strong these people were after switching to “veganism.” I must say, though, being a raw vegan is a personal decision. You really have to listen to your own body, another thing yoga has taught me. Although this is a topic meant for another day, yoga taught me just how little I knew about what I put into my body and why I was doing that in the first place. I knew so little about animal cruelty and over the course of my time as a yogi, I transitioned into the vegan lifestyle for many reasons. I grew to love so many beings on this planet, especially animals. Yoga truly taught me how to appreciate life in all its forms despite how stressful or tough it may be. I can’t thank yoga and my fellow yogis enough for introducing me to the vegan lifestyle.
Yoga really taught me how to think slowly and calmly in a fast-paced world. I stopped just considering my own stress as the only stress and recognized the beauty in everyone. Yoga is such a bonding experience and when you know that you can all be trying your hardest to pose the same way as the instructor, you push yourself harder than ever before and can end up doing a pose you never thought possible. This was applicable to so many other elements of my life, like school. Yoga pushed me to step outside of my comfort zone and really see what my body and mind are physically, mentally and emotionally capable of. I proved to myself that you really can do anything you set your mind to, as long as your conscious lies in the right state of mind. If you’re not in the right place, you won’t get yourself where you want to be on the path that you wish you could.
Ultimately, my point here is that you should never hold yourself back despite someone or something that is trying to stop you. In my opinion, yoga is the best investment money can buy because in the end, you’re a far healthier person in the mind and in the body. You learn to listen to yourself, beacuse you are the only person who can truly hear what you are saying. You can get advice from others, but overall, you know yourself better than any one, and your body knows you despite how many transitions you put it through. Yoga taught me to really listen – to listen to the life around me and to listen to myself. Self-care is so incredibly important no matter where you find yourself in the span of your lifetime. Always recognize that no one knows your body better than yourself, and never forget to stay in touch with what it is telling you. But even if you do forget, know that those elements will always be with you, and will remain there until you choose to return back to them.