What keeps us coming back to Yoga?
Yoga is life. Life is like a camera.
When we use a camera, we learn to focus on what's important, capture the good times, develop and grow from the negatives and, if things don't work out, we take another shot at it.
Staying in Touch with our Inner World
A photograph can hold many memories and mark time in our lives. A yoga practice can draw us inwards in a weekly yoga class, something to look forward to having sacred time away from the pressures of day to day life. A date in the diary that is just for you. Time to put down social media and most importantly time just for our Self. How often are we able to take sacred time for our self, where nobody wants anything from us, where there is no where to go because we are already here, exploring the sensation of being alive, adapting to suit the moment by moment needs of our body. A body that is different one day to the next as well as a mind that may benefit from practising being in the present moment?
Meeting Life with a Steady Heart
The nature of the mind is to be either in the past or the future. The body is unable to be either in the past or the future. The body is only ever able to be in the present moment. Yoga and meditation teaches us that our mind moves much quicker than the body and it is also able to focus fleetingly on many different things all at the same time. Yoga also teaches that by learning to keep bringing the mind back to the time of the body, the now time, the present moment, perhaps by focussing on the breathing or with still eyes on a point straight ahead, we are able to live and to be grateful for each moment. This helps us live a more fulfilled life because we are able to focus, like the camera, on what's important and to leave the rest. It further teaches us that it's OK to let go of the negatives and to enjoy the fruits of taking a new perspective, taking a different shot or yoga pose, or to change the breathing so we may enjoy a different or completely new tone of emotion. Opening our hearts to joy.
Class or Home Practice
So it may be desirable for yoga and meditation to become our anchor to being present in our life. If a weekly class doesn't feel good to you, how about dipping a toe occasionally into a longer class, workshop or yoga immersive where times may vary from a 60 min weekly class to a 90 min workshop or a 180 mins immersive?
For some, there is the joy of developing a personal, home practice. Doing it when you feel like it. Adapting and adjusting as your needs change helps us release pain and to come to terms with changes that we have no control over in our life. And, for others there is the desire for a home practice but none of the motivation. So what then?
Help is always on hand. It's always good to talk and to share. Kathryn offers free 30 min guidance sessions, either on the phone or in person at Kingswood Practice in the centre of Horsham. A half hour chat can be invaluable in helping to refresh, guide and deeply personalise your own yoga practice. Whether it may be to enhance your class experience and/or develop a little home practice that you can enjoy when you feel like it or to refine time to time by attending class or taking the occasional one to one private session.
Contact Kathryn to arrange an informal chat.
Photo: Tim Mossholder Unsplash