Yoga-nalogies for Life

After practicing yoga for almost ten months now, I was finally able to do a wheel - with a little help and support from my yoga teacher. I was both petrified and exhilarated at the same time!  It was so scary to surrender to the pose and put my trust into my yoga teacher's hands. But afterwards, I was beaming because I had challenged myself to take this risk and had emerged victorious.

On the way home, I started thinking that this milestone in yoga class was clearly an analogy for life. In life we need to challenge ourselves and to take risks if we want to lead the most fulfilling life we possibly can - the life we were meant to live. We wouldn't practice yoga with the thought that our pose is good enough as it is, and we shouldn't approach life this way either. The ability to trust translates into trusting the universe enough to know that we are in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, that we are supposed to be. The universe will always be there to provide us with everything we need - to be our metaphysical "helping hand."


I have to admit that I struggle with the balancing poses and often find myself gripping my toes way too intensely onto the mat. As my yoga teacher always reminds us, this isn't the correct way to do these poses. In yoga, as in life, we shouldn't be holding on for dear life to anyone, anything or any situation. If we find ourselves doing that, then it probably wasn't meant to be and we need to move on.

During vinyasa yoga, you literally learn to flow from one pose to the next, and your fluidity increases the more you continue in your practice. This "ability to flow" carries over into life where you learn to go with the flow with whatever life hits you with and to be flexible when things don't turn out as you had planned. Holding the yoga poses forces you to focus to maintain steady, and I have been amazed at how this ability to say focused has transferred over into my work life, and the ability to maintain steady has enabled me to remain calm in stressful situations.

As my yoga teacher is often pointing out, yoga is not a competition - anyone can participate, regardless of level of ability. Whether you are a beginner or a yoga veteran, there is always room for improvement in terms of holding a pose longer, stretching deeper into the pose or executing the pose better. In life it is always good practice to seek ways to improve ourselves. The practice of yoga also provides you the added benefit of boosting your confidence as you perfect your poses. Undoubtedly, this confidence will spill over into your everyday life.

If I haven't convinced you already of the tremendous benefits of yoga, here's one last thing. My yoga teacher claims that "getting upside down" at least once a day reverses the signs of aging and can even turn gray hair back to its natural color! Now that's a benefit too good to pass up. See you on the yoga mat.