
I used to cringe when people would suggest yoga or meditation as self-care or relaxation techniques. In my younger years I was very unwilling to try out anything I associated with inner peace! I was moving fast, strong-headed and had my walls up. Yoga and meditation seemed like something for a different breed of person.
I tried yoga in my early 30s and it was exactly what I had worried it would be like: the stereotypical slow moving, mostly stretching, soft-spoken teacher type of class. It wasn’t until my early 40s that I decided to go to Black Swan and try hot yoga. What followed was a self -transfiguration I didn’t think was possible. I fell in love with the workout, the teachers, the practice. Within my first few weeks of doing yoga there, one of the boisterous, funny, irreverent male teachers played rap music for one of the classes. If I hadn’t been completely in love with the practice before, that day definitely sealed the deal for me. What I needed as my entry point into yoga was something with an edge: a little bit of harshness mixed in with the quiet.
Yoga and meditation are always suggested as avenues to help with anything from anxiety to trauma. This is because they truly do help restructure pathways in the brain that help our nervous systems regulate, which in turn helps us better deal with any challenging/triggering issues in our lives. These practices CAN be accessible to everyone, it just may take time for you to find that accessibility point. They both truly are PRACTICES, which I love because it means you never have to be perfect. Each day is just practice. Maybe you get better, maybe you stay the same. There’s not an end goal, you never have to be perfect. It’s just: show up and try. And in that practice pathways begin to change in your brain and the feeling of self-regulation starts to show up in your everyday life.
Here’s an example. A few months after I started yoga, I had a fight with someone, and I was angry and hurt. I felt completely dysregulated. And suddenly this little voice in my head said: I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t HAVE TO feel like this. I want to feel like I do at the end of yoga, and that calm feeling presented itself to me. It was a revelation: I CAN control how I feel. I can’t control things that happen, but I am able, with practice, to better self-regulate.
Moral of the story? Keep trying. If you haven’t found what works for you yet, try something else. If you don’t like yoga at one studio, try a different one. If traditional meditation hasn’t worked for you, try a walking meditation: while out walking your dogs or out getting some exercise, try clearing your thoughts. When a thought pops up, say: let that go. And keep trying. It’s all just practice!
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