5 Reasons why your yoga practice isn’t working
There's always a point at which yoga feels like it's not working anymore. I've adored teaching hundreds (likely thousands) of fellow yoga students over the years, and so I see the pattern (plus I've lived the pattern).
Here it is: At first, when we begin the practice it's exciting. For some of us, we finally feel a sense of calm we haven't felt in a long time, maybe even a sense of ease. Many students decide to take up a yoga practice when things are hard in life - an injury, a break-up, a move, losing a job or starting a new one, a diagnosis, anxiety, chronic pain, etc. So, the yoga becomes a release valve. Then, we build confidence in our bodies by exploring new poses, we might build community, we develop a relationship with a teacher, we're learning something new, we feel our bodies responding to the breath and movement.
And, then what happens? We fall off track. We stop going for one week or two. We stop practicing on our own. Our mats start to collect dust. The reality is, we likely haven't gotten bored...but rather we've started to go inwards. Huh? Stay with me. And, going inwards is either scary and bringing up muck that we don't really want to deal with (past wounds, unhealed parts) or the same movement isn't actually supporting the needs of the body/mind now that it's evolved.
In a sense, we can self-sabotage ourselves and say our yoga practice just isn't working anymore. Anyone? I've been there.
Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash
Yoga was never meant to be a form of "fitness." It's a technology towards healing your Self, getting to know your Self, recognizing the divinity within, and allowing the Self to become sovereign. That's it. It's inherently spiritual, which is not the same as religious. The postures are a means to help you find stillness in meditation (because no one wants an aching back or knees while meditating).
Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash
Here's why your yoga practice isn't working and why you might still be feeling exhausted, tired, and uninspired even if you're practicing.
Too much asana (postures) and not enough meditation. This is how most yoga is taught in the West, when the meditation is the most important part! We place a high value on doing rather than undoing or not doing. Yoga offers us the gift of learning to be WITH ourselves and allowing an inner wisdom to emerge. We can only get there by finding stillness within/after movement, which leads me to...
Going way too fast and focusing on linear movement. There is nothing wrong with a briskly paced yoga practice, except when it moves so quickly that it becomes a numbing mechanism. Yoga is meant to teach you to feel and to be with the sensations of the present moment. If we're rocketing through postures and not experiencing them, we're missing the point of practice and we will leave maybe feeling like we got a workout, but without the parasympathetic bliss we could receive. Remember: the parasympathetic nervous system is the ever-important rest + digest state.
Not giving attention to breathwork. In the near future, there will be whole yoga classes devoted to nothing but breathwork (beyond Kundalini). The Sutras say that breathwork is the key for lifting the veils over the heart, that by practicing pranayama (breath), we can literally destroy any veils over the inner light. WOW. So, to know ourselves and to love ourselves means to learn how to breathe fully and deeply.
Disregarding the season you're practicing in. Our yoga practices are not meant to be the same. It's why I love teaching it, because we're constantly adapting. The natural seasons of the planet are meant to be acknowledged in practice. We need more grounding, stabilizing practices for fall, more warming practices for winter/early spring, and more cooling practices for summer. By honoring the seasons, we can bring more balance to the body/mind.
Erratic consistency. THIS. In order to see and feel the benefits of yoga, we must practice consistently. For me, that means every day (some days this is solely meditation and a sun salutation). For you, that might mean starting one day per week. The Sutras say that yoga needs to be practiced consistently, patiently, and with intention. "Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and in all earnestness." We have to show up and make this commitment to ourselves.
Which one resonates the most for you? I'd really love to hear it. For many of us, yoga goes in phases and cycles where we need to change it up and adapt to our evolving states. That's the whole point.
With love,
Leanne
