Yoga is a good companion to have when you are taking up something new. When life is taking a new turn, when things start to take different colors. When the career you knew you could have start taking shape,  when you are sensing a new meaning to life.

Yoga is a good companion when there’s hope starting to emerge on the horizon. To accompany you in the good times. 

We only here about yoga stories of hard times. How yoga helped to cope, to recover. It indeed is a great companion to have when the going gets tough. But not only.  Yoga is for happy times too. Like a good friend, yoga accompanies you through and through.

What is yoga?

Like many things in life, you give meaning to yoga. It’s what you want it to be. Without discrimination. 

But we see many versions and manifestations of yoga and decide that this not for us. That ‘this isn’t me’. in most cases, this is true. All styles of yoga out there are not for you.

But if you give it enough time and approach it without too many expectations, it could be something helpful. And something surprisingly wonderful. I invite you not to judge it by the torrent of colorful visuals, perfect postures and aesthetic backdrops on the internet.

Instead I invite you to be open to what it wants you to be. Sure, if colorful visuals are what you need, let it. If you have an expectation on yourself that you will strike this pose how you saw it on Instagram Suggestions, let it.

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Let it evolve..

I try not to give unsolicited advice (outside my friends circle). Yoga classes notwithstanding (you pay me to give advice). But this is a piece of wisdom I can’t not share. Do be open to it. Please be open to it. Give yoga a chance. Give it time. See what it can do for you.

One truth that had served me so well for so many new situations in the past is that; one’s ability to approach something new with an open mind makes the new experience so much better, so much easier. So much less of a burden and abrasive. This isn’t something I learnt easily or came naturally to me. Mostly, this resolution had been my last resort. When something is too shifty and new, I tell myself; ‘see how it goes’, ‘don’t try to control it or have expectations’ ‘let it evolve itself’

Ride the wave..

Yoga is incomprehensibly vast and vibrant, going at it as lightly as possible serves you in more ways than I could tell you. It’ll be sad if it intimidated you before you even try. Even worse, if you tried and it didn’t meet your expectations. And if the first attempts at it didn’t serve you in anyway benefiting, try another branch of yoga. Or another style. 

Once, my then yoga teacher asked me what I most liked about yoga. I didn’t get the question. Looking at my blank face, he explained. ‘which practice do you like most? Asana, pranayama, yoga nidra?’. Light bulb moment for me. I have never bothered to think in these lines. Because for me, the entire yoga class was one experience. Also, because I generally got through the entire yoga class without much difficulty. But after quick deliberation, which meant the answer was rather honest, I answered him. ‘asana and meditation’. I could tell from his expression that he didn’t expect that answer. I’m not sure what he expected. But I can tell you that I didn’t expect that answer either.  

I was glad he posed that question. I was glad to find out the answers. Because, just like that I have jumped another hurdle. Meditation. This is daunting to me as it is to majority of people out there. I never realized that I came to like it in my effort to meditate. At that point it was still an effort to me. It was something I was trying to achieve. My mother had tried to train me in the practice of meditation since I was a child. I go with her and do my usual daydreaming and count the time until we can go home. I have tried and failed. 

Or maybe I thought I was trying but never actually tried? Couple of years into yoga and I was talking with my mother about my inability to meditate (she’s a pro, she can stay in meditation effortlessly and for as long as she likes), she told me, ‘if you can’t bring your mind to tame, just sit in meditation pose. It’ll come to you one day’. That’s what I did. Every night for few minutes I sat there with the intention to meditate. And one day It did come to me. I’m a novice and don’t feel I’m much of an authority on it. But now that I tried, I mean actually tried; I can tell you, trying to meditate counts for meditation too. And at some point you give up trying and just sit. And there you have your breakthrough.     

So, try different schools if you must, different styles. Try different practices, if one branch of yoga isn’t for you, try another one. You may stick with only one part of it even though a wholistic practice is much more beneficial. But don’t let others’ ideas of what’s beneficial stop you from getting what’s beneficial for you. You might not get what you came for, instead you might have solved something you really wanted to, but never thought there might be an easier way.