Alan Watts once said, “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain, obvious, and simple. Yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
Ideas like this help me gain perspective.
As we go about our daily lives, we often find ourselves lost in ‘what needs to happen’, missing out on being in the present moment.
It is a challenge to let go of the monkey mind, the chatter that says “I need to…” “What time is it?” “Oh, I have to…” (fill in the blanks).
As a mom of an active boy, I often find myself in that chatter mode, so when I can stop and simply be, I relish the moment. I find this to be one of the many benefits of yoga.
Yoga is more than just a physical workout. It is about establishing harmony between the body, mind, and breath, reaching a state of focus that allows you to be fully present.
When you are on your mat, following the teacher’s instructions, you are discovering movement within yourself, focusing on your breathing, allowing your mind to be still. You are developing self-awareness, allowing space for clarity, which translates into stress relief and inner harmony.
When we allow ourselves this practice, the experience ripples out into our daily lives. We become more relaxed; we can find stillness in the middle of the challenging moments in life.
Just as when you are on your yoga mat, you must first find stillness and flow in your breath before moving into a challenging pose. If you don’t, you may be creating tension in the body, or furthermore, rushing to get there (in a flustered state), and chances are you will lose your balance and fall.
Falling is okay in yoga and in life. That is how we learn to get up, dust ourselves off, and move forward with a new understanding that brings perspective into our experience. The practice of yoga can teach us to navigate challenges with grace and resilience, fostering a new sense of self-awareness.
In short, yoga is a win-win on many levels beyond the physical, which can translate into our daily lives.
I invite you to embrace mindfulness practices like yoga, allowing yourself to discover and experience its benefits.
❥ Namaste
“The light in me honors and salutes the light within you.”
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