How yoga helps me to balance my life

When we talk about balance in this chaotic world which is strangely a very elusive word. Balance is something everyone wants to achieve in their life as it is one of the most essential things in our lives to cultivate a true sense of happiness. But honestly, it is one of the hardest tasks when you are juggling so many responsibilities in your life. Figuring how to achieve that perfect sense of balance is not easy but yoga seems to make it a little achievable even not perfect though. The practices like yoga and meditation help you to attain that blissful state of harmony inside your body.

When I came to Rishikesh to attend my first ever yoga teacher training in Rishikesh at Rishikesh Yog mandir, I was just a person who had a very limited idea of how my life should be looked at. I was someone who had a prospering career, a beautiful family, and everything which people think is needed for a happy life. But inside I was this person who can easily get affected by stress and anxiety; little things become a huge issue for me. I was highly insecure about how my body should look and all those things led me to the first yoga class which literally put a fire in me. This further led me to Rishikesh – the yoga capital of the world for my first yoga teacher training course. Little did I know here I would learn some important life lessons about balance which were completely different from mine.

Learning the importance of mindfulness

In Rishikesh our days begins with cleansing and meditation to set an intention for the day where I learned my first lesson which is mindfulness and how to achieve it with every breath and each yoga pose. Through the power of breath which is the most powerful tool in yoga, I learned to become mindful and become aware of my own body sensation. When I was practicing yoga I was fully present on the mat completely. In yoga pranayama holds a special place and also some poses calm your mind and encourage you towards meditation. This creates a sense of mindfulness in me and I become more and more aware of my inner being and what my body needed.

The certain old habits that were destructive to me stated subsidizing from me. I no longer crave junk food as I know it is not good for my body. As I was introduced to the sattvic food in Rishikesh and I know how It positively influenced my mood. I started making healthy choices for me and it was my first step towards balanced living.

It made me more aware of my body

Yoga interprets to the union, union of an individual with the consciousness of the universe. Yoga helps you to become more attune with your body and mind and bridge the gap with your soul to attain balance and harmony. Even though I have started practicing yoga I was more in my mind rather than the head. Here in Rishikesh, I was continuously practicing yoga and I was stretching, moving and flexing my body into different poses. In Rishikesh, yoga is much more different then west, it is much more inclined to traditional yoga. As I was holding the poses for a much longer duration I become more in tune with my body.

With every yoga poses I was feeling every sensation happening in my body this made me more acquainted with my body subtle energies.  It made me fall in love with my body and I started appreciating it as I was experiencing it that how strong it while I was moving through the poses. Now I no longer attach myself with weight and how my body looks instead I started nourishing with healthy food and lifestyle choices.

Accept what you can’t change

Yoga teaches me that acceptance is key if you cannot change something. Everybody is different but we all are perfect. I learned it took me some weeks to master those hard yoga poses as I was a little tight in certain areas of my body. It took me a while to realize that I cannot change this fact and rather than taking it as a competition to master those tough yoga pose like the fellow yogis I need to accept this fact. As when we try to push ourselves too hard it affects our mood negatively so rather pushing ourselves we must accept things the way they are and let it go.

Life is a beautiful dance of balance

With yoga, I learnt that life cannot be perfectly carved as we see in our imagination and every moment is different and unique. Sometimes it is full of chaos and sometimes it is full of wholeness, relaxation and balance just like the dancer pose in yoga sometimes we able to find the balance and alignment in the pose sometimes we fail.  But how we perform in the moment of chaos is a reflection of our true self-the work and effort we put in it.

Yoga taught me to take a moment whenever I was in chaos and breathe to redirect myself just like we need to ground ourselves in the dancer pose through the power of breath. It teaches me life is like a beautiful dance and I can always achieve true balance and harmony through the power of breath and yoga.