I have been a lazy bum for as long as I can remember. My days have started in slumber and ended in yawns. I was so invested in studying and making a career that physical exercises took a backseat. I gained almost 25 kgs from 2017 to 2020. I acknowledged that this gain was unhealthy but I always made excuses not to work out.
I tried running, only to discontinue it later. I went to the gym but I was turned off by the props and so many people around. I have read and heard about Yoga but I did not take it seriously. I used to think of it as something easy and as a warm-up.
But I realized I could not be more wrong!
When my friend’s brother pestered me for months to start a yoga course at Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga (MDNIY) and I finally joined a foundation course there in February 2020, just before the lockdown started in India. The course initiated my journey to the amazing world of Yoga.
In this post, I discuss 5 life lessons I learnt from Yoga after practicing it for a year:
- Energy governs all
- Your body is limitless
- Rushing is not natural
- Peace of mind is the ultimate goal
- Your breath is your friend
Energy governs all
Your entire day and life is about energy. Spending just the right amount and saving what is needed can give immense benefit. When we are young, we have a lot of energy. We feel that we can conquer everything.
Extra energy comes with a responsibility of managing it and investing it in the right causes. Once we grow older, our energy reduces and managing it becomes the greatest challenge. Yoga helped me realize that.
As I do aasanas that are energy intensive, my body needs some rest to recuperate itself. After I have taken some rest, it gets back up. When I invest all my energy to an aasana while practicing without distributing it in thinking or worrying about anything, I get the best results.
Energy is the key!
Your body is limitless
On the very first day of my Yoga class, my instructor showed me Natraj Aasan and I was smitten.
I was amazed to see how much body is capable to bending. When I joined the class, my body was stiff and doing lot of stretches felt like an uphill task. But after practice, my body loosened up and I realized how limitless our body is.
Rushing is not natural
The “Hustling Culture” in today’s culture is worshiped and normalized. But hustling is not natural!
I was doing an asana while lying down on my back and I got up with a jerk. With an instant rush of blood, my head started spinning. What I did was not natural. The rush of blood that came with the jerk made me dizzy. We keep doing this to our mental peace every day. We keep moving from one screen to another without caring about the jerks.
Move with grace. Move naturally!
Peace of mind is the ultimate goal
Every asana that you do gets better as you get more peace of mind. Meditation is recommended to complement Yoga practice. The same happens in life.
As you gain more peace of mind, you get greater control over your body, your thoughts. This helps to channelize energy and focus towards achieving the goals. Once you attain that, everything else follows. Most of our pain and suffering stem from mental instability.
Aim for peace, you will achieve everything else!
Your breath is your friend
I started having frequent anxiety attacks from 2013. I came across a resource on how to calm anxiety and it pointed towards focusing on breath to calm your nerves and feel better.
Breath is something that is natural to you. It is there with you 24×7 and you can focus on it at any moment you like. In yoga, breath and asanas have a cyclic relationship. As you gain more control over your breath, your asanas become better and as your asanas become better, your breathing becomes better.
More often than not, we draw your breath only till our chest and do not inflate our lungs properly. Yoga taught me to breathe deeper. Doing so instantly calms my nerves and makes me feel better.
Breath deeper to live healthier!
These are only a few things which I have written about. Yoga has taught me a lot of other things which I am deeply grateful about.
Do you enjoy doing Yoga?
What is your preferred mode of exercise?