I’ve never wholly considered myself a religious person. At family dinners growing up we very rarely joined hands in prayer, and when we did it always felt performative. I wrote off the idea of being a religious person a very, very long time ago. Instead, I’ve worked through my values by trial and error — making mistakes, connecting with my gut, and following my heart. Leading my life this way always felt much more authentic to me. A large part of these self-discoveries have come at the hands of wellness: learning how to treat my body and mind. Through this exploratory method I found the practice of yoga, which has slowly become the most rejuvenating and enlightening spiritual journey I never thought I’d take.
I became interested in the movements associated with yoga when a fellow colleague of mine very insistently encouraged me to come with her to a vinyasa class in my hometown. I liked it; I felt sweaty, quiet, and humbled. That friend and I began to go quite frequently, and then eventually she stopped going and I continued falling in love with the practice on my own. However, when I moved to college I lost this practice. Yoga studios are extremely expensive, and although the practice of yoga is not confined to a studio or a classroom, if you’re anything like me, the community is a make-or-break aspect of whether or not I choose to participate in the practice. I went two years with no consistent practice. In my junior year of college I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and was advised to begin moving my body intentionally again in order to maintain my mobility later down the road. I slowly re-entered the practice that I once had, attempting to regain strength and work through this period of internal turmoil while facing this diagnosis.
What I found was much more than physical practice; I found a way to carry myself, a way of life, and a belief system that actually seemed to align with what my gut had been following all along. I learned that yoga is a lot more than the postures that initially intrigued me. There are eight limbs of yoga that coalesce into what is known as ashtanga — a practice of clarity, liberation, and growth. Each limb of this practice is described in ancient texts such as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and, for me, has become a lens through which to view the world. The eight limbs of yoga consist of yamas (five ethical standards: nonviolence, truthfulness, moderation, non-stealing, and non-hoarding), niyamas (five self-disciplines: purity, contentment, zeal, self-study, and devotion to a higher power), asana (physical posture), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (sense withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (enlightenment).
This realization — that yoga can be so much more than what we see in Westernized wellness studios — was a bit overwhelming at first. Thinking of yoga as just a set of postures was easy; thinking about yoga as a constellation of interwoven branches of daily practices was hard, confusing, and frustrating at times. What I had failed to realize when I initially started and re-started my journey was that the intention of yoga is not necessarily to feel stronger (although that is certainly a product), but to find liberation and freedom within the mind and body and from there, your interactions with the world around you.
This practice has brought me calm and stability in what has otherwise been an increasingly stressful period of my life. I am grateful for a studio that teaches the traditional ways of yoga and that has introduced me to a community of people seeking a similar practice to me. I never thought that I could see myself as a religious or spiritual person, but yoga has completely changed that aspect of my life. For probably the first time ever, I feel like I can say there is something, greater than me and my own values, that I believe in.