I recently received a beautiful email from one of our students that is on her yoga journey with Unwind Yoga Studio. People come to yoga for lots of reasons, often to seek a source of movement, stillness or enrichment.
But, as Chloe so beautifully hints at, there are even better reasons to take up yoga and here are my top 4 for starting right now:
Reason #1: Feeling better in our bodies
We know that moving our body is the single best way to keep it healthy, the joints flexible, the muscles strong. A well designed yoga class gives a whole body workout, sometimes more gentle, sometimes stronger, always making us feel physically better with less pain, and often, somehow, imparting an optimism for life and our future that is a little addictive!
Reason #2: Mind the mind (yoga is cheaper than therapy)
Mental health issues are on the rise, in fact, we all suffer from levels of stress and anxiety at any given time. If it isn't the pandemic, then it is the climate crisis, and we all suffer from the sheer speed and harshness of our fast world. Never a quiet moment. We are divorced from the natural world, resulting in a sense of loneliness, loss, confusion and depression. Yoga significantly offsets stress. It's a fact. Take a yoga class and feel the stress leave you, calm fill you, breath enter your body - a restorative effect that lasts for many hours. Yoga truly is remedy.
Reason #3: Soul Survivor
Yoga sets the stage for spiritual development. Often the reason for starting yoga is one of the two mentioned above, and the big surprise happens when all of a sudden life seems richer, and we are able to bring yogic ideas to everyday life. Approaching challenging situations with more calm, skill and less friction is developed on this ethical plane that opens up for us, and from which we can grow our true potential. Greater fulfilment, passion, purpose and meaning will follow.
Reason #4: Connection
Oh, how we crave connection. Real, human interaction. We have noticed that the students that attended our Zoom classes during lockdown came for the yoga - and for the connection that developed amongst them. Now that we are back, they embrace the communication, the sharing, the being together, doing something immensely pleasurable. There is movement, stillness and then giggles (or sometimes wholehearted banter and laughter), there is listening and understanding. Yoga students actively improve upon themselves, live more consciously and find a common bond with fellow students. Spending time in yoga circles greatly improves our personal wellbeing. That has an impact on the circles around us, family, community and the world. A knock-on effect of happy feelings, and that is good news for humanity, and the world!
Yoga is so much more than being able to reach your belly to your thighs in a forward fold. Its essence is always centred around reasons #3 and #4. Discovering our soul, free from pain in every layer of our being, living aligned with our highest principles. Using every thought, word, feeling as an opportunity to make this world a better place. Those are things yoga teaches us, even if we don't know it to start with. The benefits we find in our bodies and minds are actually just a very handy side effect ;-)!
Keep shining!
To explore how you can make the world a better place and get an amazing body, mind and expanding soul, START HERE!
(Unwind Yoga Studio is located in Cookham, Maidenhead, in Berkshire)
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