As I spent yesterday in a yoga workshop, aspiring to be a’ yogini’, I reflect on what yoga means to me. I was introduced to yoga over thirty years ago and since that time I have worked on and off at quieting my mind. This is a hard thing to do. In yoga, it is called the ‘monkey mind’, jumping from one thought to another in a turbulent sea of disturbance. I have a bad case of this monkey mind.
Like most moms, I am a skilled multi-tasker…working, maintaining the house and home, parenting to the kids. Layer onto that I also built my own home, created Garlough Photo and am now managing ever increasing speaking engagements I must be nuts. Sometimes it feels as if I am.
I need yoga, big time. Yoga brings me to a place of calm, where I turn off all the issues of the day and I allow my mind to relax, rest and most of all rejuvenate. It never ceases to amaze me how solutions are revealed, creative ideas are birthed and plans of action are implemented after yoga. I feel peaceful and centered after yoga. It is a healthy place to be.
Yoga is also healthy on a cellular lever. It feeds rich, oxygenated blood to every cell in our body, it drains toxins from the lymphatic system, it tones and massages our internal organs, it stretches not only muscles but also veins and nerves and keeps the spine flexible. Yoga, along with other sporting activities has given me the stamina to do all that I do.
I am grateful to have discovered yoga and my yoga instructor. I believe in the balance that it creates so much so that I have recently become a yoga instructor myself. I now benefit from being both a student and a teacher and can only hope that with thirty more years of practice and teaching, I might eventually be able quieten ‘monkey mind’.
Until then