So here I am :P
Ive spent the past months being really busy with work and working out of course. I did plyometrics as I've mentioned in my previous post. I still did zumba every so often although not as often as I did in the past. And of course there's yoga.
But for the past month or so, I haven't been doing anything else but yoga. Chalk it up to immense work stress and a couple of personal problems. While exercising is a form of stress relief, I deemed it necessary to do more yoga than anything else.
And then I realized in the midst of it all -- I only practiced yoga, but I wasn't really a yogi at heart. I've developed my body and my skills in practice, but I haven't developed the entire eccense of yoga -- which is the union of the body and the soul. I was calm on the mat, but outside of it I'm not. I was mostly angry and frustrated about so many things happening around me.
So I did what any normal person would do when you want to develop something : you study, you practice.
I read up more about yoga and its precepts . I practiced more. Hell I even listened to yoga songs more during the day because I realized it helped me calm down and feel less stressed throughout the day.
And then something happened one night: I was standing in front of the elevator door of our yoga studio in the business district and on it I read this:
" Lokha Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
May all thing be happy and free and may my life contribute in some way to that happiness and freedom for all beings"
I immediately fell in love with it. And I remember it's sung in one of the songs used in our hot vinyasa class. I loved it so much I had memorized it automatically.
I realized that's exactly what I want in my life and that's exactly what I want out of my life. I want happiness and freedom and I want to be a giver of such to other people, especially those I love.
That started everything for me.
I practiced yoga more often, at least 4 times a week. I joined challenges on instagram that made me do at least one yoga pose every day . I felt like a sponge mustering everything I can learn from my practice and applying them in real life.
I started appreciating myself more and more and I honestly saw a change in me.
I found myself being less and less egoistic both in class and in the real world. Me. I can end up injured and bent all sorts of ways until I quit on trying a pose. Yeah, I'm still pretty much the same, but when I feel my body giving in already , or when I feel my wrist acting up , I stop.
I also noticed that I was more forgiving of myself when I couldn't do poses I used to be able to do. In yoga practice that is a very common occurence: some days you can do the pose, some days you can't. And before I used to beat myself up for it. But lately I tend to hear myself say "Ok, maybe not today. I've tried enough."
I learned the value of self acceptance and self respect more in the past few months. I have to be honest in saying these 2 concepts are so alien to me, I've only started learning about them slowly starting 2009. The idea of being gentle and kind towards oneself is very alien to me. I'm used to beating myself up a lot and abusing my body because I cannot accept its weaknesses. I especially could not accept my wrist injury -- which is why it's been here for 2 years.
And while I have excellent therapists to teach me these concepts, I realized that the practice of yoga helped me execute what they have been teaching me all this time. Respect your body. Listen to it, it knows more than you do. Accept what you are and what your reality is for the moment.
The same applies in real life. And I see myself applying these more and more especially at work.
I found myself becoming calmer and more rational about things. Even at times when I find myself hurting about some things, I find myself just letting it be. As one of my yoga instructors would say " Savasanah... let it go" It was further explained by another yoga instructor of mine saying " Be still. Acknowledge the thoughts that are in your head, but don't hold on to it. Let it be and let it go."
Golden words for me. Especially when I feel anger, frustration, pain. I focus my energies on being still, letting it be and letting it go. Doing my very best not to inflict more pain onto myself and inflicting unnecessary pain onto others.
From my readings about yoga, all the more I understood what becoming a yogi really means. It doesn't make you less human. It doesn't make you a robot. When people see yogis the impression is usually this : "Damn they're like hippies who are perennially stoned without a care on the world" Wrong. I learned that yogis just know how to acknowledge, accept and let go.
The more I practiced, the more I got to develop these attitudes, apart from developing my strength to do more poses of course. I will admit I'm good and I can do a lot of funky poses that most people can't do. But I also have a number of poses that I can't do, some of them I still can't nail after 4 years of practice. I know myself a lot better now. I know my body a lot better. I can finally stop at a basic pose knowing that getting deeper into it will just be futile because I'm not doing it right, henceforth not getting the benefits of the pose.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean I'm slacking off. Everything takes practice. You practice and when your body tells you its tired, you rest. There's always tomorrow. Or the next day. As long as you don't give up, you will get there. Take for example what my instructor calls my "eternal struggle" -- pincha mayurasana -- I've been working on nailing that pose for almost a year. I can do all sorts of inversions but this I cannot nail. So after class I'd practice it. It doesn't matter to me anymore than some newbies can do it and I can't. I can't do it. I need to practice. I started disecting the elements of the pose: what am I doing wrong? Where's my gaze? And guess what I'm not getting right all this time? I wasn't doing udiyana bhanda (stomach lock) after all. So once I got that, I felt like starting all over again. So yeah, I still can't nail the pose completely now. But I can get into it smoother, I can hold it longer. Everytime I practice pincha I hear all the lectures of my instructors in my head and apply them one by one. I'm slowly but surely getting it.
Somedays when I practice pincha I can barely get into it. Some days I get into it like a pro, stay for like 5 seconds and then roll over. Tonight, I was able to do pincha with ankle weights, and then did it without the weights and held the pose for 25 seconds.
Everyday is really a different day. The cliche " Every day is a chance to be better" is true. And in accepting and respecting my body's limits it made it easier for me to let go and be gentle with myself.
In real life, the same has been happening.
I'm in a job I'm only learning through experience because I am not an engineer or an architect. I get scolded at by my father (my boss) , I have screw ups once in awhile with clients. And I used to be so hard on myself because I'm being trained to succeed my brilliant father.
But lately I've become more receptive to what I learn on the job. I've become more receptive to what my dad teaches me, even if he doesn't necessarily express it in the most fatherly way. The operative word is "training" -- let me reiterate my line " I'm being trained to succeed my brilliant father." And the more I work, the more I learn. The more difficulties I face, the more I learn. The more challenges I find myself in, the more my skills as a project manager develop. I disect the elements of my job, the nature of our business and my skillset and try to develop it piece by piece until I get it. Ego outside of the door, as my yoga instructors would say. And looking at myself now, I may not know everything I wish I already know, but I know more than I used to and apparently I know more than what most of our people know because I'm so exposed .
In my personal life, the same is true. Everyday is also a learning process. But in my personal life, I hold on more to my favorite chant as I've stated above " Lokha samastah sukhino bhavantu."
Everything I've learned on the yoga mat makes a lot more sense to me now. I cannot and I will not say I'm a full blown yogi already. But I'm gonna get there. I feel my practice is getting deeper and deeper and it's really affecting me as a person. I'm more at peace despite all the chaos that surrounds me.
Indeed , you go back to what you really love.
For me, it's yoga. I can stop doing all forms of exercises but I will never stop doing yoga. I love how it's transforming my life. Being a real yogi makes me like myself even more than I used to. I don't just like myself because I'm pretty or I'm smart or whatnot. It's what's inside me now that matters to me more than makes me love myself even more. I like what I'm becoming :)
Lokha Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.
May all beings be happy and free and may my life be a giving to this happiness and freedom for all. :)
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