I'm back. Yes. Again. And where have I been?
Dealing with life. Blah blah blah. The usual.
Life sometimes gets the best of me and I unfortunately seek out what I must do, rather than focus on what I should do. One area that I continually seem to neglect is my blog. I sometimes find myself struggling with what to share and what not to share. What is "appropriate" to put out to the world wide web, and what isn't. My blog has been such a personal outlet, that I have found it challenging on knowing what to even write sometimes.
I'll start typing and then,
delete...
re-write...
pause...
write again...
delete...
and eventually,
just stop.
Although my blog (aka my place to express myself creatively) has been neglected, I've been blessed to fall back in love with yoga. I started doing yoga during college and instantly fell in love with it. It was the perfect paring for me; combining physical and mental benefits.
{Insert pause: I'm going to yoga right now.}
{Okay, I'm back.}
I started doing yoga originally knowing very little of the mental benefits that coincided with the physical benefits. I was always in sports growing up {gymnastics, softball, basketball, volleyball} and loved working out, without actually "working out." (did that even make sense?) Anyway, after graduating from high school, it was challenging for me to "just go to the gym" because I found no joy in running on a treadmill or elliptical machine. When I started hearing more and more about yoga, I thought, "Hey, why not?" This was around the time that I felt yoga was sort of the "buzz word" for physical fitness. Celebrities raved about it and it became sort of the "thing" to do.
When I walked into my first class, I had no idea :
a.) What I was doing
b.) How physically challenging yoga was
b.) How physically challenging yoga was
c.) What I was going to experience mentally
After all, it was just a work out. Boy was I wrong. After my very first yoga class, as I lay in Shavasana, I was met with an overwhelming rush of emotions and began to tear up. I was sort of in shock by my reaction, because I had no idea where it was coming from. It wasn't until I laid there in complete stillness for awhile longer, that I realized that I had experienced mental peace and quietness for random moments throughout the class.
Not thinking about what had to be done that day.
Not thinking about what was lacking in my life at that moment.
Not thinking about negative thoughts.
Not thinking about the stresses of life.
Not thinking of my own self worth.
Not thinking about anything.
It was amazing and overwhelming all at the same time.
Unfortunately over the past few years, I lost my love for yoga and let it slip out of my life. I'd randomly go and feel the benefits, but still couldn't find myself sticking to it, despite the fact that I knew I was meant to do it.
Finally, after one of my best friend's became a Yoga Instructor, I found myself signing up for a two week boot camp that she was going to be teaching. It was expensive and it was early, but I found myself with no excuses left as to why I wasn't doing yoga. The two week boot camp really helped me jump start into committing to my practice.
I'm so thankful for finding yoga again and falling back in love. Yoga hasn't had all the answers for many of the questions in my life. I've realized that is on me. But what yoga has done, is allowed me to find calmness in the storm. Peace in the chaos. A quiet mind in the midst of the insanity. A brief moment in time to get lost in the stillness of my own mind.
Namaste.
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