Life Lessons I Learned from Yoga

Today, I woke up not being able to move my arm because I sleep like a funnel cake so I had to skip my morning yoga routine. BUT just because I can’t practice physically, doesn’t mean I can’t practice the insights I’ve learned since picking up yoga.

I’ll start off by saying that I never tried yoga for the mental and wellness benefits initially. In high school, I’d join my older sister who was a huge fan of Bikram yoga (the kind you do in a 118 degree* heated room). *I did not fact check the temperature, but I’m sure I’m not far off.

Okay, I just googled it. It’s actually 105 degrees farenheit and 40 percent humidity. The first article that came up coined them as “Torture Chambers” just for you to really grasp the gravitas of what we’re talking about.

I was not so much a fan of getting lightheaded fifteen minutes in and spending the remaining hour and fifteen praying I’d keep my shit together until the door-open savasana (also called corpse pose- very apropos). Cursing under what was left of my shallow breath and dehydrated beyond belief, I stopped tagging along with her, then stopped doing yoga altogether.

Cut to a decade later, after becoming a textbook workaholic with an inability to turn the constant doing off, I fell into the deepest depression I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t get out of bed, slinking out only to pour a bowl of cereal for every meal and maybe brushing my teeth (IYKYK). I only knew the days were passing because the stacks of bowls on my nightstands would rise until there was none left in the kitchen cabinets- then I’d just skip meals instead of washing the dishes. Depression is WILD.

One morning, I looked up yoga poses you could do in bed. I knew movement helped with depression and I also knew getting out of bed was a tall order for the state I was in. I found some in-bed morning yoga stretches on YouTube. For a few days, I did the bare minimum of movement and finally decided to get on my feet and outside for a morning flow.

I started doing ten minutes, then fifteen minutes, then got a monthly unlimited pass at a local yoga studio, giving me something to structure my mornings with and begin building the habit of daily movement to get out of my depression. It stuck. Now, any time I start feeling off or like I’m slipping back into my default workaholic mode, I return back to the mat. There is so much to learn every time we practice. Here are five life lessons I’ve learned from yoga so far:

1. The importance of a loving focus.

   You pick a steady, non-moving point to anchor your eyes on while you grow into whatever pose you’re practicing. That’s called a Drishti- the point of focus. During balance poses, if I’m trying too hard to keep my eyes on my chosen Drishti, I’m still falling over. The rigidity, the pushing, and the desire to achieve breaks the connection with my gaze. The loving part of the focus softens the Drishti from a death stare to a relaxed, day-dream like target and allows the full expression with ease and flow.

2. “Different side, different story.”

   Not holding yourself to a standard, whether it’s what you could do five years ago or five minutes ago, but accepting where your edges are for every part of your body. We are not machines. Not everything is equal within us. It’s like being right handed- you wouldn’t expect your handwriting to be just as clear and legible if you were to write with your left just because your cursive is incredible with your dominant hand. The acceptance and non-judgment of your different abilities allows kindness and the reality of having a human body.

3. Breathing is the only mandatory. Everything else is a suggestion.

   The most important part of yoga is never abandoning your breath. The word "vinyasa" comes from Sanskrit and means "linking movement with breath". If you’re in the full expression of a difficult pose but constraining the breath, you aren’t getting the benefits of yoga. As a person who grew up outcome-oriented, praised for achievement and excelling, I love this. If you sacrifice your alignment to get into a pose, realize you’re holding your breath, or that the breath has become choppy, that’s a signal to re-prioritize a smooth, slow breath over distance or depth.

4. “Mind your mat”.

   This is like comparison being the thief of joy, a reminder to keep the focus to your own four corners and your own breath. If you’re paying more attention to another person in class, that’s the wrong Drishti. Engaging fully in your own practice keeps comparison at bay because we’re not showing up to out-pose everyone else. Yoga is not competitive, with others or yourself. (See Lesson No.2)

5. Effort and Ease.

   All yoga poses are intentional. Some are harder than others, but when confronted with difficult or uncomfortable positions, finding where you can soften is key. There is a balance between the effort, the pushing toward a specific goal, and the ease of backing off and allowing the flow to happen. Of all of these lessons, maybe most important to me is remembering: flow over force and the breath is the boss.

   (*This is a good time to just take a big full inhale and exhale wherever you’re reading this. And honestly, maybe two more if that felt good.)

xM