Starting from Jan 2021 with an “impure” purpose, I have regularly practiced Yoga for six months. I could not believe that I will genuinely love Yoga one day when my motivation was only to lose weight and become more flexible. Have I achieved my original goal? Kind of, I have gained flexibility. But I also noticed that I had achieved more than physical benefits. I want to share the three most important things Yoga taught me:
- Love my body
We are flooded by all the images, videos, and articles from TV and all kinds of social media. It hugely impacts how we evaluate/judge other people and even ourselves. For example, we should look slim, pale and that’s how a pretty girl looks. I was also thinking the same way. The more I practice, the more I appreciate the flexibility and the strength of my body rather than simply pursuing the numbers.
- Everyone is equal
I have to be very honest – this one is a dramatic change for me. I always consider myself as the one with advantages. I could be proud, and sometimes I could be blindly confident in myself. But when I went for yoga classes, there were so many people with different backgrounds, at different ages, and from different countries. There were always people you thought could not do Yoga well, but in the end, they were the best ones in that class. I still remember this lady (sorry, I need to describe my impression first); she looks a bit chubby, dark, and probably middle-aged. I thought she could not do Yoga at all, as she did not look like those yogis in my mind who can do Yoga well (Fit and energetic looking). But surprisingly, she can do the tripod stand pose transited from the wide-angle forward bend pose effortlessly. Immediately after that class, I knew I need to change my perspective of thinking! But I do not feel bad for my thoughts anymore; everyone who practices Yoga has their own journey, and that was part of my journey.
- Be Patient and slow down
Yoga has also taught me to be patient and to slow down in my journey. When I first started, I easily felt defeated or disappointed when I could not do some poses after a few tries, as I always considered myself a quick learner. But Yoga is something you really need to be patient and slow down to integrate the alignment, the breath, and the focused mind into the movement instead of running from this pose to the next pose.
