β¨In my last story, I talk about an episode that I have listened today from the @highestselfpodcast today about our addiction to suffering and that made me think about why I started yoga in a first place. .
π«I did my first yoga class 5 years ago because I thought it would be a solution to my stress. I started with a quiet yin yoga class and I couldn't focus as I had too much time focusing on my own mental pain. It was not strong enough to numb my thoughts and feelings. So I stopped after my first class.
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πWhen I got even more stressed 1 year later, I came back to yoga because I knew somehow it could help me. But I started a stronger version of it: hot power vinyasa. During the classes, that I started to do more and more regularly, it was hard. I felt pain in every part of my body, because I was never doing any sport before, and because I allowed myself to feel pain. I wanted to suffer.
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I pushed myself more and more to cope with more and more stress. And as a rewarding, I was not thinking anymore, I felt my body was exhausted, and I could only focus on the physical pain and somehow it was easier. .
πThen one year after that, I realized how far I had come to numb pain. I quitted everything that hurted me to try to heal myself. .
As a lot of people do, I travelled to escape my thoughts and reality. And I found peace when practicing yoga abroad. During the yoga teacher training, I finally understood that yoga wasn't a tool to feel more pain in order to heal but was instead a tool to explore physically and mentally myself in order to heal. And when my mind shifted, yoga never felt the same anymore. β
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It was all about cohabiting with my feelings, pain or hapiness, and not feeling addicted to suffering anymore. The goal wasn't to be in pain but to be closer to my pain, when this one occured, so I could hug myself and move my body to express my feelings and heal. .
I share this today because we all come to yoga for a reason. It might be pain, it might me because it is trendy right now and everyone is doing it and it seems cool, but anyway yoga is the most awesome tool I have found to release, let go and found out the best in me. (end in comments)