4 Life Lessons from My Yoga Mat

Mindlifespirit-4-Life-Lessons-from-My-Yoga-Mat

Written by Angela Choi

Angela is an International Life Purpose and Career Coach. She helps driven professionals who feel stuck and unfulfilled to discover their purpose so they can have both the impact and income that they want. Angela completed her 200-hr. Yoga Teacher Training in India and approaches coaching from the belief that it is our birthright to lead happy and joyous lives. Sign up for her FREE guide, 6 Steps to Living Your Purpose and learn more about her coaching program at www.angelachoi.co/6-steps-to-purpose

March 2, 2021

It’s common for people to view yoga as a form of fitness, a way to engage in mindfulness or at best, a combination of both. While it’s true that yoga enables me to open up my hip flexors that are usually too tight and that I am more aware of my breath each time I try to sync it with a different pose within a Vinyasa flow, I also believe that yoga embodies much more than fitness and mindfulness. My yoga practice on the mat has taught me some invaluable life lessons that I’ve applied off the mat.

1) Living in the present is an act of self-love

For me, signing up for a yoga class is an act of self-love – to dedicate an hour of time to be with myself, for myself, without an explicit goal or output in mind. I see it as an opportunity to be mindful of my breath and body – to be more self-aware and truly live in the moment. Of course, there have been times when I’ve gone to a class with my mind teeming with thoughts, worries and a never-ending to-do list. Try as I may to quiet my thoughts, in those instances, they’ve taken me down a rabbit hole such that when I am finally able to pull myself back to the present, I am puzzled by how I’ve ended up in Reverse Warrior – I don’t recall transitioning into this pose because though my body had been moving, my mind had been elsewhere completely. When I am able to pull my mind back into my body, I am reminded of what it means to live in the present – to be in the here and now, rather than ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Being in the present is the only time that we are fully living and loving ourselves means allowing ourselves to live in the present, even if our thoughts want to transport us to the past or future. Yoga enables me to be the present, even if it’s for a brief period of time.

2) Just like nature, we ebb and flow

4 Life Lessons from My Yoga Mat
Image Credit: Farouk Mechedal (Unsplash)

I practice yoga almost on the daily and as such, one would think that I’m fairly strong, flexible, balanced, etc. In large part, this is true; however, despite my ongoing practice, I still have those days where my legs start shaking when I get into a high lunge. I have days where I can get into and maintain Warrior 3 with such ease and grace. I also have days where the moment I start tilting my body forward to get into Warrior 3, my standing leg is already wobbling.

I’ve come to accept that my body responds differently on different days and that’s okay – there’s no need to berate myself because just like the ocean tide, I am ebbing and flowing. I can honor my body the way that I honor nature and its rhythms. If I can honor my body on the mat, I can honor myself off the mat too – I can accept that there are days where I’m very productive and there are days where I don’t want to do anything. There is no need to force things to happen because the body and mind know how to find equilibrium if we just let them be.

3)“The only person you should strive to be better than, is the person you were yesterday.”

When taking classes, sometimes, I’ll take a side glance to see how the person in back of me is doing (it doesn’t help when there’s a wall-to-wall mirror in the room). In doing so, I become distracted in many ways – my mind is either engaged in a dialogue about how the person’s posture could be improved upon, which makes me feel mildly better about mine. However, who am I to judge how someone else is doing? If not that, then I’m ogling at someone’s headstand and wondering when I’ll ever be able to do that without being spotted. Either way, I’ve taken myself away from the present and have gone into a state of comparison, which is not helpful, on or off the mat. The only yogi I should be comparing myself against was the yogi that I was. In other words, the barometer of my improvement should be a self-comparison from where I started to where I am. In a similar vein, “The only person you should compare yourself to, is the person you were yesterday.” Comparison to others doesn’t serve a purpose – we will never be satisfied because there will always be people who are “better” than we are and if we’re building our self-esteem because we feel like we’re “better” than someone else, it’s a rocky foundation.

4) Lasting and sustainable changes happen incrementally

Lasting and sustainable changes happen incrementally
Image Credit: Chris Lawton (Unsplash)

There was a period of time where I demonstrated a strong aversion to wheel pose and more often than not, would skip it – I was worried about my arms giving out, my spine felt too rigid and as such, the pose felt challenging and unsafe. Now, although I don’t love it, I can easily get into and maintain wheel pose. I attribute this to the fact that I’ve built up both a consistent yoga practice and exercise regimen. Oftentimes in life, I get frustrated at myself for not “moving fast enough,” especially if I know that there’s a particular habit that I want to change or there’s a goal for which I’m striving. My yoga practice has taught me that lasting and sustainable change happens through incremental and consistent practice, not overnight.

Featured Image Credit: Dane Wetton (Unsplash)

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