Yoga: Feel your feelings, Allow your thoughts

I hear all the time. I can't do yoga I am not flexible enough. Honestly, being flexible or not being flexible has really nothing to do with Yoga at all. Yoga is a practice where you incorporate your breath with your movement. It is a tool to go inside your body and become in tune with your inner environment and landscape. It is a way to bring unity between your mind and body. It is an intentional way to live. It is a conscious way of observing, bringing awareness to your habits, our behaviors, and our thought patterns so we can learn to respond rather than react.

In many ways, in the world we live in we tend to go about our day totally in our heads. We are stuck in our to-do-lists, our routines, our habits, or thoughts with little awareness of our own patterns. Unfortunately, this can affect us immensely constantly putting us into react mode as we try to navigate through this world. This can have a tremendous impact on our ability to deal with stresses in our life, causing us to suffer from depression and anxiety and many other mental health ailments.

What can we do now? Sit with ourselves, allow ourselves to feel whatever we are feeling, not trying to change anything. Don't try to mantra yourself through this. The idea is that you fully feel whatever it is, you accept it, not trying to change it. You need to fully "ride that wave." Allow the feeling and thought to take as long as it needs before it fully dissipates. Trying to get over something by using positive words or affirmations may cause you to temporarily feel better, however, you will have to deal with it later. Whatever your do not take care of now, will show up in some shape or form later.

Yoga gives you that space to fully show up for yourself and be the witness of your thoughts., while also giving us space to process our needs in our internal environment.