Working in a corporate world for many years, I have been caught up in negative thoughts. I felt so lost and alone. Something was missing in my life. Then I came into yoga practice and it changed my life.
Since then (March 2014), I am enjoying this most incredible, rewarding and empowering journey of self-discovery. And this journey compelled me to share my learning with everyone. So here are 7 lessons that yoga taught me. I hope this inspires you too.
1. Trust yourself and decide for yourself
I used to be a person who always seeks for others opinions and their advice. I didn’t have enough trust in myself to take my own life decisions. Even when I was choosing my career, I called each friend and some relatives about what subjects should I choose. I wasn’t aware of how much I relied on others rather than myself. But yoga-practicing helped me to take my life decision on my own and I took life’s biggest decisions. It not only helped me to trust my own abilities but also made me strong mentally and physically.
2. Re-inventing yourself
No one knows you better than yourself. But we don’t have enough courage to change the way we are living today because of some insecurities. When I was into the corporate world, secretly I wished to be a yoga teacher somewhere near the beach, spent lots of time on Instagram to look at the yogis’ profile. Oh and finally I did. I started practicing, wore comfy clothes and with a tattoo on my ankle. I absolutely enjoy what I am today, not worry about how people will say or think about me. It took lots of effort to reinvent myself but I finally achieved it.
3. Listening to your inner voice
When you are alone, you can hear your thoughts more. But mostly our thoughts are negative when we sit alone to think. Earlier when I spent time to listen to my thoughts, they reminded me only about my weak points. But this practice totally changed my thinking pattern. I started digging deep into myself to become mindful towards my thoughts, habits, and reactions to life. Now I have a list of ways to listen my inner self and I follow it without a break.
4. Patience
In today’s life, the word patience for human beings has been replaced with the need for everything now. People have become impatience to achieve success, perfect body shape, money, relationships and so on. We all are in urgency to get fast result. Even I have noticed that people can’t wait to see the next episode on Netflix, they compromise with their sleep to complete those episodes. It is leading them to ruin their mental as well as physical health. I was on the same track some years ago but it made me realize the importance of patience. I have decided to put it into practice life long.
5. Gratitude
We usually blame others or complaints about others for not doing this/ that or for not behaving according to them. Why can’t we see any good in others or in situations? I also didn’t know the importance of gratitude but I gradually started it in my behavior. I practiced saying THANK YOU to the people or to the things for which I am thankful for. Now it has become my habit to say thank you who helped me in any way, to the driver to drop me to the office, to the shopkeeper, sweeper, waiter, office boy, to my colleagues, to my partner to help me and so on. This practice helped me to open my heart chakra and I am able to make the people smile more.
6. Not caring what others think
I was always afraid of uploading my photos on the social media network thinking that what will say or think. But regular meditation taught me why do I care about what others think of me? And how do I even know if people think about me? At that moment I made a choice to push aside those limiting thoughts and be proud of who I am.
7. Time to re-focus on your health
The most important negotiable thing for humans is their own health. For many years I suffered from some ongoing illnesses like migraine, obesity, acne, stress and so on. I tried everything to cure myself, visited dozen of doctors but never focused to cure my dis-eases from inside only was working on outside. Finally, my partner suggested me to join yoga classes. I thought let’s do it. Initially, my only purpose to join yoga to lose some extra pounds but life had some other plans for me to come into yoga.
My interest in yoga had me so deep that I finally decided to help others and became a yoga teacher. Now I spend the majority of my time focusing on my health, relaxing, meditating, connecting health experts, reading their blogs. I decided to say it to myself that I won’t compromise with my health and my health will be my first priority always.
Be yourself, Be happy always!