What Yoga Taught Me About Love
Back in 2011, after my mom died, I learned many new modalities and therapies from massage school. I also got involved in more yoga classes. I learned new ways to stretch my body. I followed yoga teachers to learn more about how to get myself into different poses.
I wanted to feel better about myself and have a new, better body, but it was uncomfortable to do yoga at times. I wanted to change the flexibility of my body and feel happier about having a more fit body. The more I stretched my limits, the more my emotions came out to the surface… anger, jealousy, sadness, fear, loneliness.
I had just experienced the death of my mom and at this point, I was numb to emotions. I wasn’t able to do anything about my mom’s death. I felt helpless at this time. When I pushed myself to do better, I faced a whirlwind of feelings. If I couldn’t achieve the pose that I wanted to get, I became angry then sad then lonely. Sometimes my emotions were so overwhelming that they set me back and I would let time pass before I attempted to work on my body again.
My body was holding onto many emotions at this time. It was traumatic to come to the realization that my mother was dead and that there was nothing that I could do.
I continued working on my body’s athleticism. I did yoga. I did aerial arts with different teachers. I did pole dancing with different teachers. I did yoga programs from my phone from highly respected yoga teachers like Dylan Werner, Kino MacGregor and Ashley Galvin. I participated in many yoga challenges. I did the LadyBoss personal training program as well. I followed Jillian Michaels’ workout DVDs. I wanted to change up what my body was used to. I wanted to keep challenging it.
I was working on my goals hard. I didn’t have many people that related to why I was working so hard in my daily life to reach my fitness goals. A lot of people in my life were overweight, seemingly okay with themselves and just accepted themselves and their unhealthy habits.
I was able to transform my body and feel better about myself. I learned to stay committed to small actions each day to contribute to the overall picture of how I wanted to look and feel. There were many ups and downs, but I grew in confidence when I looked at what I’ve completed.
How does this relate to love and what did it teach me? Love is attainable. We have to get in touch with our emotions and have a handle on them in a healthy way so that it doesn’t defeat us. There are times where it will seem like our end result is very far away, but it is continued small actions each day that will bring us to our goal. For love goals that could mean taking the time to connect with people around us. For our health goals that could mean dedicating ourselves to 15 minute workouts during the week. There may be past failures and traumas that we’ve experienced that come up in our thoughts when we least expect it and overwhelm us and bring us into a negative emotional state. Letting go and moving forward is a process and we can’t expect to heal immediately overnight. Patience is needed.
