Nearing the tail end of National Yoga Month, I’ve saved asana and pranayama for last, which seems fairly odd given that most of the yoga advertisements pushed by those in the yoga industry start with advertising full of images of themselves or others in fancy yoga postures, wearing spandex, and flaunting near perfect figures. I don’t see myself necessarily as “part of the U.S. yoga industry,” but as a spiritual practitioner looking to guide others on the deep and beautiful path that I have chosen and reaped the rewards of. I am more interested in the principals I’d covered previously and seeing others apply them to take themselves higher in life rather than teaching people how to do handstands. I study anatomy/physiology because I want to learn more about the physical makings of humanity, not because I am interested in conditioning one’s body to look a certain way. However, I do regularly participate in asana practice, the physical yoga practice that is typically seen online and in yoga journals, and this article will attempt to articulate why.
I remember the first studio I’d ever gone to. My fiancé had gotten me a gift card and yoga mat on Mother’s Day because I had been talking about wanting to try yoga but hadn’t taken the initiative to get myself out there and find a studio. It was one of those things that a lot of us do… “Someday, I’d like to… blah blah blah.” It makes us feel good to talk, meanwhile we sit around procrastinating and making excuses. At least, this was me at this point in my life. When I booked my first class and showed up at the studio, the thing that stuck out the most was the welcoming disposition of the studio owner and how genuinely interested she was in each person who walked through the door. The place seemed to exude love and I felt cared for and nurtured each time that I was there. I especially loved the hands-on assists where the instructor would walk around and gently correct misalignment. She was in tune with each student and seemed to see them in such a deep way. At this time, I felt like a nobody and being in this space made me feel seen.
I spent a lot of the early classes looking at others and trying to mirror what they were doing so that the perfectionist in me could have each pose “right.” Despite the encouragement to go inward and focus only on my movement and myself, I found myself peering around the room and mentally competing with the people who were practicing alongside me. I was angry with myself when I couldn’t hold a posture properly. My mind was on speed when we were in savasana (corpse pose where all you literally have to do is relax into the mat, breathe, and lay there like a corpse)… I’d feel my heart beating out of my chest and my mind would be going a mile a minute, “You are so out of shape. You should have never stopped going to the gym. You used to be so fit… what happened to you? It sounds like you might have a heart attack from a simple 60 minute workout. What’s wrong with you?”
At this point in my life I was my own worst enemy. With each practice and the encouraging words and wisdom of the instructor, I began to see my self-talk. The same “me” that I’d lived with my whole life was a nasty, competitive, demeaning, bully. Nothing was ever good enough for her. She never celebrated the wins; she always looked for the failures. If I held the pose, but did so shaking, my inner chatter went something like, “You’re so weak… if you had more muscle you wouldn’t be shaking.” If I fell out of a balance posture it was something like, “Really? You used to do dance and gymnastics… how do you not have balance? It isn’t that complicated… get it together.” Same type of inner chatter went sounding off around the postures that required more flexibility, “Wow! Girl, you’ve lost it.”
The point is that through the asana practice… in a space where there weren’t a lot of distractions, just me, my mat, meditation music (sometimes), and the guidance of the instructor… I was left with the inner workings of my mind and the capability of my own body. In the silence, I could hear it loud and clear… the damaging, destructive, negative, and unhelpful thought patterns that were running my entire life. It wasn’t yet evident that these thoughts were insidiously the reason for so many missed opportunities or bad decisions… that took much more yoga practice, church, and therapy to get to the bottom of. Yoga opened the door for me to be more open-minded around the idea of therapy and life coaching. Prior to reaching this point in my life, my response to anyone ever suggesting I “talk to someone” was something like, “Why the hell would I ever trust some person who probably can’t even get their own life right to help me with mine?” I was so resistant to the idea of sharing anything with anyone about my inner world. When I finally gained enough awareness to see what was going on in the attic, after 33 years of piling emotions up there not to be seen or heard, I was finally ready to admit that I needed some help unpacking .
On the mat, I began to notice that when stress hit, the voices were more enraged, more reactive, and overall meaner. I’d find myself cursing at the instructor in my head when certain postures were called that I didn’t particularly enjoy and cursing at myself as well as I poured the pressure on to perform. I realized that these patterns were not only part of me on the mat, but also applied to my life off the mat . In times of stress where I felt threatened in some way, I was quick to go into defensive mode and the “big, tough, Jackie” would come out roaring with her “I don’t give a F%$k” attitude. I’d become mean and lash out which was always my protective mechanism of choice… anger was the default.
I also noticed that often the stress would hit well before my body even experienced the stress. The moment I thought we were going into a challenging posture, my mind was already starting to go on a tangent with, “Ugh! Seriously? I don’t want to do this…” before I even tried it. I wasn’t in the moment, but I was already anticipating the experience would be “bad.” I also found that I did a lot of this in my life off the mat. I would catastrophize and stress out the night before I had a meeting with a big client thinking about all the ways it could potentially go bad or how I might sound unprepared or stupid. The morning of the meeting, I’d be running to the bathroom several times because my nerves were out of control. The dread was so severe that I hated my job because I couldn’t overcome my own anxiety around having to talk to people. The funny thing was my colleagues would tell me how professional I sounded on calls and how they’d thought my speaking ability was one of my strengths. It didn’t matter, I still kept repeating the same pattern.
The point of sharing these stories is to illustrate that regular physical practice allows your thought patterns to rise to the surface so that you become more aware of the repeating patterns in them. It’s also a place where you can see the changes in your thought patterns more clearly. One day you’ll look back and realize, “Wow! This used to be something that I hated and now it’s my favorite posture.” You’ll see the way you speak to yourself shift as you become more confident and learn to love yourself much better. You’ll see as you shift your self-talk, you begin to create self-worth and love within. You’ll see that when you can do that, you develop greater power to achieve things you never thought possible, whether that be crow pose, handstand, another complicated asana… or maybe it’s off the mat landing your dream job or pursuing more of what you love.
It isn’t only this, but the ability to feel the tangible energy and power (of God) within your being as you move through each posture on your mat. The physical practice mirrors life, there are peaks and valleys, high energy days and rest days, victories and failures, joy and pain… The longer I practice, the more I feel I’m learning to remain centered no matter what life brings. I’m not as easily shaken by people or events around me. I notice much quicker when something is slightly “off” with me or when the energy is “off” around me. I’ve become much more physically sensitive to the feelings that come with being alive. The best way I can explain it, is I’m more alive, in part, as a result of yoga and that’s why I long to share it with others.
If you’re interested in going deeper in your practice or wish to start a personal practice, I offer private yoga and coaching sessions. Don’t wait… you will never get this moment back and you are worth it!