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Yoga gives us so many gifts: strong and flexible muscles, supple hips, and physical equilibrium.
Add on top of these benefits mental equilibrium, stress relief, relaxation, self confidence, and peace of mind.
But for me, one of yoga’s greatest gifts was that it helped me to love my body.
When I first began to practice yoga 14 years ago, I was in a very different mental space than I am today. I was an 18-year-old college student living in LA; very self-aware and concerned with my looks.
True to the LA obsession with weight, I fell prey to wanting to be skinny. And skinny I became.
I exercised with my weight in mind; always trying to stave off the poundage that could have easily come with beer drinking and late night pizza. It was a yoyo of debauchery and cardio cleanse.
So when I first came to yoga, my practice was all about fitness. Yoga was hard and gave me the good sweat that I equated with a solid workout.
It complimented my swim sessions, multi-mile runs, and gym workouts perfectly. I loved how my muscles lengthened and strengthened as I went from barely being able to reach my shins in a standing forward bend to getting my fingertips all the way to the floor.
These kinds of transformations had me hooked. It was fascinating to witness my body metamorphose.
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It did take time, though; I wasn’t born bendy.
Actually, in the beginning yoga served as a reminder of my body’s flaws. Struggling in hip openers made me feel less womanly than other girls in the class. While they stretched with ease in firelog pose, I usually had to take the variation appointed for tight-hipped men.
Yoga ripped into my ego in those early years, as I still hadn’t come to appreciate my body’s uniqueness.
Nonetheless, I continued. For years, actually. Slowly slowly, my body opened. Camel pose went from a painful struggle to a pleasurable sense of spinal release. Pigeon went from a pose of torture to one that I actually looked forward to.
A previously tight and knotted structure, yoga slowly unwound me.
Each class became a personal triumph as I witnessed my body becoming increasingly open and strong. I could feel the progress I was making in the physical aspect of my practice.
Yoga went from exhausting to exhilarating. I saw changes all over my body — even my toes grew stronger.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about my weight. I began to love my body as it was. My self-criticism faded as I started to feel proud of the ways I was able to bend and balance. Yoga class was an exploration of the physical form. It was fascinating to discover the ways I could stand on my hands, reinvent my sense of equilibrium, and even channel my mind toward thoughtlessness.
I became truly grateful for my healthy body, and was inspired to take better care of myself in all ways.
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Here I am now, 14 years later, a yoga teacher and ayurvedic practitioner who teaches others to do the same.
It’s understandable why social media is full of girls posting sexy photos of themselves in difficult asanas. Yoga is really not about the physical, but I imagine that these ladies are going through the same metamorphosis that I did years ago. They’re discovering their bodies’ potential; their strength and suppleness, their ability to balance in ways previously unimaginable.
They’re proud of their practice and are in the early phases of yoga’s process of self-discovery.
Soon they’ll get more into the spiritual aspects of yoga, just as I did. It’s a process.
For many of us, we start with the physical.
We learn to love our body and honor our physical form. With enough practice, we begin to recognize the effects that yoga has on the mind. We feel a shift in our mental and emotional equilibrium.
Eventually, we tune in to how yoga can help us to spiritually evolve, and we seek out its deeper wisdom.
It’s all a beautiful unfolding. And physical exploration is the perfect place to start. It was through yoga that I learned to love my body, which led me to take greater care of my body, which then encouraged me to work on my mind, which eventually inspired me to develop my spirit.
And in the end, that’s yoga’s greatest gift of all.
If you’d like to discover more useful tips to improve your physical and mental health, then check out Zenward.
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