I'd have to say that Yoga saved my life.
I started serious Moksha Yoga practice a few months ago as a means of dealing with extreme stress and anxiety. In fact, I was borderline suicidal as a result of unexpected and traumatic changes in my life. It's a sad and disturbing chapter in my life that I would just as soon forget it - but there is now way around it... for complete recovery - the only path forward is through it.
But this blog is not about loss, heartbreak, guilt and remorse.
Instead, it's about using every instance in life as a springboard to something more. Every day we each face a choice about the thoughts we foster and repeat in our minds - and often a life-crisis is the only time we WAKE UP and take a look at ourselves from a third person perspective... so we can clearly see ourselves for the first time. And upon seeing ourselves as other people might view us - we are, in that moment, able to see what changes we need to make to improve our personality, our habits and attitudes.
Of course we don't need to wait for crisis to make changes - but most often we float along with the familiar, with the routine - until something occurs that SHOCKS us into re-evaluating everything in our lives. With this new perspective we can make better choices.
But emotional habits are difficult to break. They are hidden deep in the sub-conscious and habits of feeling and thinking are not as quickly changed as painting a new color on the walls of a room in your house. There is momentum that needs to be overcome time and time again - before we have a new state of being that we could call a new personality.
Yoga Helps
Each time I have finished a Hot Yoga class - be it the standard Moksha sequence, Moksha Flow or the more challenging Hot Flow class, I feel like a different personality. Even when my crisis was raw and acute, I left class feeling more calm, centered and my emotions lifted from despair up to neutral and sometimes I reached feelings of gratitude.
But while I felt relief - the yoga practice did not provide my troubled life with a solution for my situation. And I found myself returning to the yoga studio morning and evening, because I was desperate for relief.
Manic Yoga
The first month I attended 36 classes even though I was traveling for one week out of the four. The second month I traveled for ten days and still managed to attend another 36 classes. And now in my third month I have attended more than 40 classes in the first three weeks... and even moved to within two blocks of the Studio. Now I welcome the routine of 6am class and evening class each day. The morning session helps me approach my day completely differently than I did in my pre-yoga days - and the evening yoga helps me retire for the evening without the racing thoughts and gut-turning heartbreak that my crisis has forced me to face.
Guided Meditation In Addition To Guided Yoga Practice.
Yoga is an ideal way to let go of emotional stress. The mind guides the body to move, and the body calms the mind. With a calm mind, a different range of thoughts become available to access - as each of us will only accept thoughts that are a match to our emotional state.
Once the mind has reached some state of calm, it's time to implant new thoughts - and to nurture them so they may grow. It is time to stop thinking old thought patterns and to let those old, negative emotional habits to slowly fade away through lack of use.
Just as I could never guide myself through an hour-long series of yoga poses as well as I can follow along the instructions of an experienced yoga teacher, I also could never guide my thoughts on a new and better path without the instructions of an experienced meditation teacher.
Through the rest of this MyMoksha Blog, I will share my journey to healing - and I hope it may inspire you to let go of the past, let go of your old emotional habits, and to take the steps toward better feeling future possibilities - towards facing yourself, towards seeing yourself as you were, and towards making the daily, moment to moment choices to embrace change and open your heart to the unknown future.