Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
My Personal Spring Cleaning is about more than eating better and cutting back on the TV, but also about taking time to challenge my mind and my way of thinking. Buckle your seatbelts, because things are about to get really real in this post.
A Little Context
What’s funny is about a year ago, I had a few very close friends in college who were full-fledged yoga fanatics. They invited me to their apartment to join them watching some amazing YouTube sessions, but I was waaaaaay too cool for it. Just ask them. I really was a bit of a jerk about it.
I thought yoga was for girls who like taking pictures in front of lakes at sunset doing twisty contorted poses because they like getting affirmation on social media for looking *super cute* in their patterned leggings and expensive sports bras. Now, I knew my friends were not these girls, but… well we all know the type, and it’s worthy of a few eye rolls.
the struggle that led me to a paradigm shift
When I moved away to a very closely knit north Georgian city, devoid of friendships like the ones I used to cherish (and now I realize I sort of took for granted), I was exhausting my options for creating new friendships.
I knew I could look for friends at the small women’s university I live directly next to, but at the same time, we’re in a totally different phase of life. The ones that I’d have anything in common with will be getting jobs and moving away just like I did.
Being the social creature I am, and seeing one, maybe two people a day, I reached a point of the closest thing I could relate to “depression.” I lost interest in a lot of things I used to love, and I didn’t really leave my apartment unless I was out of food or I wanted to take myself to a movie. I cried a lot, I ate a lot of order-in Chinese, and I watched hours and hours of Netflix to make the time pass.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my new job, I loved my cozy apartment, I loved the little town I just moved to, but I hardly had any social interaction, and it was really taking a toll on me. (Also I didn’t have my pup yet, who was a HUGE catalyst in the joy I now have in my life.)
So I decided to swallow my pride and join a yoga studio nearby to see if I could find a few gals to have dinner with every once in awhile.
my first few classes
My first few yoga classes completely changed my view on yoga. For the hour and fifteen minutes that I went to my yoga class, I forgot about how lonely I was, I forgot about how I hadn’t made a single friend, and I stopped eating so much dad gum Chinese food. I had something to look forward to at the end of my day.
Yes, it was great to be around a room full of people, which filled my social void. But it was also a completely new experience for me to make my mind a clean slate and remember all of the things that I’m so fortunate to have. Also, it was pretty physically demanding, and if you even for one second start to think of something other than what you’re doing, you might just fall right on down.
Truthfully, I let a tear or two fall during my first class. The instructor talked about having gratitude for the smaller blessings in life – the sunset, the trees, the pretty flowers, the breeze blowing through my hair… and on a deeper level, financial stability, food on the table, and people who care about me (even if they were many miles away).
I realized how I never really “stopped to smell the roses,” if we want to be really cliché about it. Appreciating the moment I’m in, rather than making the time pass until I can get to whatever thing I’m looking forward to.
As soon as I became more open to appreciate my surroundings, I started meeting people my age at church, at yoga, through my friends from college or from home who knew people in the area. Things were looking up.
All of that goes to say, yoga was a beginning for me that has created a wonderful way for me to escape the things that get us down from day-to-day. Whatever grime I have built up in my emotional (and physical…) pores from throughout the day gets to be released during my yoga practice.
my photos are more than just affirmation
That’s when I stopped judging yogis. Everybody deserves to feel the type of free-ness that yoga brings. The photos we post are more than *super cute* and ~aRtSy~, they’re milestones. And these photos are another way to find other yoga enthusiasts all over the world who post their journey as well, which challenges you to be better. And for me, they remind me how important it is to stick with it before all of my muscle memory is gone.
Poses like the one in the bottom photo (a variation of natarajasana) take a lot of concentration (at least for a beginner like me) and once you master the stillness it takes to not come falling to the ground like a complete idiot (which I did…. multiple times) is hard to achieve when you’re first starting out.
Looking at the serenity I eventually reached in that photo is more than just a picture whose likes I’ll be counting later, it’s a reminder of how much progress I made in my first couple of months of practicing yoga. It’s motivation. Every time I look at it, I’m immediately transported back to that moment on the lake at sunset when I finally nailed that pose for longer than two and a half seconds.
And I’m proud of that.
