This world’s situation right now, especially in my country, has taught me a lot of things. It gave me overwhelming emotions that made me change my habits, active lifestyle, and life choices. Being overwhelmed by the chaos and life challenges, it made me reevaluate my outlook, relationships with my friends and family, and everything else.
With all the noise and chaos that are happening all over the world, I, and I suppose most of us people in this planet, got too overwhelmed and distracted. It came to a point where I just want to drown out all the noise, the negative thoughts, and shut individuals from my life.
There was this extreme negative energy around me that I just want to escape from reality and leave. However, this is not possible since it is still not safe to travel and mingle with friends outside. Hence, I was forced to confine myself inside the house during this time.
What is the significance of yoga to one’s life?
During my downtime, I thought of new things I can explore and do to clear these negative thoughts. My train of thought led me to start a new fitness routine.
You see I have a very active lifestyle. I feel restless if I don’t do anything or if I have the same routine everyday.
Negative and useless thoughts will then enter my mind and destroy my inner peace and stability. Once that happens, I can’t do my work properly and my body becomes stagnant.
Then, one day, I felt this urge of practicing yoga again. I was a yoga practitioner before but then I stopped due to work and school commitments.
The challenges, pressure and struggles I experienced this pandemic made me find my way back to yoga.
What is the ultimate goal in yoga?
Viewing this query from personal experience, this article is about me sharing how I restarted my life and infused myself with positivity through yoga, its benefits to my wellbeing and how it helped me reevaluate my life choices and goals in life.
Yoga, one of the most popular fitness exercises that has suddenly boomed this 20th century, is something I encountered only during my early 20s.
It recently enjoyed some buzz in today’s world due to its numerous physical and mental health benefits that helps us keep ourselves sane and active especially when pandemic started.
The year of 2016, I was at the lowest point of my life. A tragedy just passed, I resigned from my day job, I was at crossroads on how to move forward with my life.
In short, I felt like the world abandoned me and I don’t have any dreams or plans at all. When everything seems bleak and dark, yoga came knocking at my door.
I started practicing yoga 5 years ago when a friend introduced me to the ancient practice. My goal back then was just to try it our for the fun of it since going to the gym is not really my thing.
I’m too lazy to drive and I don’t want to waste money and energy on things that I know I cannot sustain in the long run.
Just like everyone else, I have this misconception that yoga is easy. You only need to stand, pose and breathe but I was totally wrong!
I can still remember the struggle to stand straight for 15 seconds or how rigid my body was in doing even the simple poses.
Nevertheless, it definitely paid off! A year of practice gave my body the care it deserves, the peace of mind that I really need as well as the positivity during those dark moments.
Years passed and now, I considered yoga as my retreat and reward. My go-to exercise when things feel a bit chaotic and overwhelming due to pressure from school, family and work.
To people who are new to yoga, it is an ancient form of exercise that is accompanied by poses and breathing which boosts your physical and mental wellbeing.
For beginners, they have this misconception that yoga is only for petite, skinny-looking girls and it has these awkward poses, stretching and breathing exercises that gives you peace and makes you lose weight.
Well it is a fact that yoga is all about poses and breathing but this exercise is not only for petite, skinny women. It is something that anyone can do and in the long run devote themselves into.
Can you say that doing yoga is important, why?
According to doctors and several yoga gurus, yoga gives a lot of physical and mental benefits for people of all ages.
Whether you are going through an illness, recuperating from a surgery or chronic illness, undergoing rehabilitation therapies, yoga can become an integral part of your healing journey.
Despite the common misconception that yoga is just a fitness workout, it is more than a workout. It is a discipline that helps balance your mind, body and spirit which then gives you inner peace, positivity and stability.
What does yoga want us to realize?
As a yoga enthusiast, here are some benefits that I gained in my yoga journey. Culled from personal experience, I am proud to tell the world.
For my physical wellbeing, yoga made me appreciate my body and holistic being more. I don’t have the petite, skinny body frame, I was too focused on losing weight that I deprived my physique the freedom it needs.
I went too hard on my diet that it came to a point my mental wellbeing was greatly affected. I realized that I shouldn’t be too hard on my body if my fitness goals were not reached or if I am feeling too lazy to finish a class or session.
Aside from that, the significant changes I felt was my body became more flexible than before, my energy was renewed, I feel a somewhat youthful glow, my metabolism was faster hence there was a significant weight loss.
But the best change was it help ease my lower back pain. Also, being too hard on your body only creates additional stress.
Once in a while we need to be kind to ourselves. Let the bad days go and focus on good things instead. Yoga helps you focus your positivity inward which makes you less critical of your physical figure.
Does the practice of yoga benefit us?
Aside from the obvious physical benefits, one of the greatest benefits of yoga in my life is how it helped managed my stress and overwhelming emotions.
Stress, negative thoughts and emotions is highly destructive to the body especially on your mental health. It gives you the inability to concentrate, destroys your sleeping pattern, induces depression among others.
According to doctors and yoga trainers, regular yoga practice creates mental clarity, calmness, relaxes the mind, sharpens concentration and gives you a more positive outlook in life. It slows down your emotions and chaotic thoughts.
Furthermore, not only does yoga reduce stress and allow the body to heal. A mixture of yoga’s meditation and breathing can help improve your wellbeing.
I’m sure you’ve heard of how yoga leads to spiritual growth. Certified yoga trainers often testify that the physical and mental benefits of yoga are just icing to the cake.
It is the spiritual growth of an individual which is the most important benefit you’ll get from it. However, you cannot get the evidence and see changes in your spiritual growth just from attending one class.
This requires multiple class sessions which will make you understand and connect to your inner spiritual persona.
The power of yoga harnesses your spirituality in terms of self- transformation, spiritual growth and development. It is a holistic experience that will improve your life views, make you reflect on your relationships and appreciate your self more.
Today the world is very chaotic. Everyday we come into contact with a person, situation or energy that can greatly influence our mood and wellbeing.
People tend to overstressed themselves and this leads to serious health problems especially for our mental health- like anxiety, depression among others.
One of the reasons, I shared my yoga journey is to create and spread awareness how yoga helped me see things in a positive way especially in my everyday dealings with life struggles and challenges.
It helped me understand that there will be better days ahead. We should stop stressing ourselves over things that we don’t have control of.
Furthermore, I want to encourage people that giving yourself some time to breathe is not being selfish. We also need to listen to our body and mind once in a while.
Final Thoughts
Yoga practice made me see everything in a new light and understand myself better. I am now more forgiving of myself. Knowing when to stop and not letting my emotions get the better of me.
I’ve learnt how to appreciate and nurture familial relationships and to foster better communication with my small circle of friends.
The best lesson or experience so far is how yoga helped me change my views on my life choices. I shifted my life choices on things that will free me from negative energy and stress because I have realized my inner happiness is what matters the most.
Lastly, let me share my favorite quote “Doing your best is more than enough”. Be kind to yourself, others and the world will be kind to you as well.
This is how yoga helped me realized my worth, my life goals and I hope it will help you too.
The owner expresses her gratitude to the writer. It is hoped that this may serve as an inspiration or source information coming from personal experience.
This is a guest article.
–Owner
