I discovered yoga a few years ago, on my way to a healthier lifestyle after I had my first child, Boobie. I was practicing yoga on TV, on the fit channel, in the comfort and ease of my own home. I had joined a gym and taken ONE yoga class before but I was newly pregnant and the poses proved uncomfortable for my growing tummy, so I quit.
At home, after baby, I fell in love with yoga. Not only did it calm me down but it made my body leaner and my mind more at ease. I turned into a yoga junkie. But not too long after, I kinda tapered off the whole exercise path and fell back into my lazy ways.
Fast forward, oh, several years later. Determined to get back into shape, lose weight and focus on me again, I rediscovered yoga, a long lost friend. Hidden between my collection of DVDs and videos in the entertainment unit, was my old copy of AM YOGA, for beginners. I can't say I hadn't tried this tape before. When I first moved to Costa Rica, I thought the weather proved too nice not to get out and exercise and I threw on the video a few times too for size. But my mind was not into it then, so I quit again.
This time I was more into my exercise and workout routine, a lifestyle change I was all too happy to make. I had been running for some months and I figured it would be a nice change to introduce a different kind of workout to my routine. Yoga seemed perfect. I checked out a yoga studio and noticed they offered classes at the local gym as well, but what better way to get back into yoga than in the comfort of one's own home?
I started doing the yoga video 2 times a week, 25 minutes each time.
Now, I am not a die hard yogi, a vegetarian or a spiritually enlightened person, but yoga suits me just fine. I would like to think of myself as on the path to true enlightenment, but I have a ways to go to get there. Plus I also like to think of myself of more spiritual than religious but I also live in a materialistic world, which gets me sometimes. But even if you are a carnivore meat loving, materialistic, rock hard persona, yoga could do you right.
I now practice certain yoga moves everyday, without the aid of my video, for at least 30 minutes, sometimes more, a day. Not only does yoga help to aid my muscles after a long hard run, but it puts my mind back into a tranquil place, where my focus is my breath, the beat of my heart and my soul, not what is going on around me.
While some days it's hard to do my yoga moves, what with the kids running around, wanting this and that, 'mommy, mommy, mommy' all the time, I still fit it in. It is essential to me now. Just another path I need to take to being a healthy well rounded human being. I try to fit in my yoga moves 5 days a week at least. And along with running and strength training core exercises I do myself, I feel whole again.
So if you're feeling stressed, need a form of exercise that you can do without too much effort, searching for calm in your life, meaning? What ever your reasons, check out yoga. It's the exercise that does a body AND mind good.
Namaste!
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