Why do you practice yoga?

During the first week of 2022, I posed the question “why do you practice yoga?” to the students in my Wednesday pranayama class. The following summation leads me to ask several questions for your contemplation.

'Yoga provides sound answers to my (existential) questions. Through personal experiences and the expanded self-definition, yoga keeps me in my body doing and being. The balance between cerebral living and embodied living merge and I learn that my physical strength informs my mental emotional space and vice versa. The time I’ve invested has shown me endurance to travel and hoist luggage, get up and down from the floor, kept me from being bored in my exercise, taken me to expanded states of consciousness, strengthened my balance, stress resilience and stability. When I brought consistency to my practice, daily, my experience of gratitude blossomed. To experience the internal space, even for 10 minutes per day, validates that I am important enough to spend time with. As a physical person, yoga balances my sensorimotor difficulties. I feel it keeps me sane, especially during these trying times.'

The untapped qualities inherent in each person can be discovered and benefit the individual and therefore, the whole. When we experience the full 8 limb system we experience the head and the body, the breath and the mind steady, at ease and spacious. Through this spaciousness, we become sensitive to pranic energy within our body. Through this sensitivity, awareness awakens and this brings an organic expansive experience of self. To have these experiences one needs a foundation, an anchor from which to expand from.

What are your chosen foundational practices in your day?

Do you have a proper set of practices to provide strength, flexibility leading to a supple body for a supple mind?

Do you regularly experience your mind as your friend?

Are you at the steering wheel of your autonomic nervous system?