If January was all about moving through a country, February felt like coming home.
At the end of my teacher training, I knew I needed more time, and practice. While I had learned so much and progressed in my journey, it felt incomplete. I wanted to study more, and to strengthen my yoga practice. December was a start, February was like a whole leap forward.
Mysore Style
Twice daily practices, with the morning focused on the foundation series and the afternoon a set of asanas designed to help you progress towards your goals. The challenge was, what is my goal? I wanted it to remain open, and to see where the month would take me, in a sense my goal was improvement wherever possible. So I focused on core strength and building my confidence in my practice.
Acceptance and Learning
As someone who does not fit the ideal standard of a yoga body, I often struggle with feeling like an imposter in a yoga class. I am bigger than most yogis, and my practice is relatively new. I also don’t necessarily have a natural ability towards strength and flexibility, but over time I have worked hard to gain both. However, it is difficult to feel confident in my practice when I start to look around me. I see people far more advanced than I, or half my size easily accomplishing what I struggle so hard to do.
While I know everyone has their struggles, mine is feeling confident in myself and my abilities. I have come a long way, and yoga has certainly helped me. I feel far healthier now, than I was 4 years ago, and part of that is losing weight. The other part of it is just faking the confidence, until I began to believe myself. Repeating over and over, “you belong here, you can do it, and you are awesome”. I have been lucky, that over time I have found people who feel similarly. Who are amazingly strong about sharing what helps them feel less like an outsider.
We live in a world where as women, we are constantly compared to ideals that are difficult to maintain. If you find comfort in your ability, then you can begin to push the boundaries and build and learn
