How Yoga Works (Part III)

In my last post we looked at two different situations. The two situations were easy to write because I was writing about myself. I have been the ideal and I have been the not so ideal. As time moves along and I continue to practice yoga I become wiser and more aligned with what is skillful and what is unskillful action. Skillful promotes peace and unskillful acerbates confusion.

It is really important that we take a look at how our sleep, time management, nutrition and movement choices play a role in our life and how we think. We only practice Hatha yoga for 60-90 minutes on a mat and the average student shows up twice a week. At some point within our yoga practice the question, “how am I living?” becomes a dominant question. Do we carry an undernourished, over caffeinated, under-slept and stressed out body to the mat or are we taking care of ourselves?

I always say that at some point, something has got to go! The lifestyle has to change or you just have to quit coming to yoga because the pain of confronting your lifestyle over and over again becomes too exhausting. Unfortunately most people choose to discontinue the yoga. Only 10% of people who try yoga continue past one year.

Many people find this depressing but the fact is that it is more comfortable to stay stuck in habits and unconscious living. It's easy to make excuses about why you can not continue yoga. After fifteen years of teaching I have truly found a great appreciation of the understanding that as human beings we ourselves are our biggest obstacle.

This is one of the ways that yoga works. We learn to look at our own mind. How is our life manifesting within our body? This becomes the very ground upon which we can draw some conclusions. If we continue the way we are living what are the predictable mistakes and outcomes? If we courageously change some things where does that point the direction of our life? How does our courageous redirection alter the lives of those around us?