Yoga, for me, began as a physical practice. In 2010, after a running injury, I started doing yoga as a way to rehabilitate myself and incorporate flexibility training into my regular workout routine. It didn’t take long before I started to see the physical benefits of practicing yoga. I recovered from my injury and found I could run farther and breathe better. My body was less sore after a workout. I felt taller and stronger. I slept better and was more conscious of my diet.
But even more important than all of that was how I began to experience self-acceptance and self-love in a way that I never had before. It was because of this that I wanted to share the teachings of yoga. I had my first opportunity to teach yoga at the Stephen F. Austin State University recreation center that same year and in 2012 I took my first 200 hour yoga teacher training in Houston, TX.
After a few years of teaching at studios and gyms all throughout Houston, I took my second and third 200 hour yoga trainings in 2014. It was while I was in training in Minnesota that I began to develop a deep meditation practice. With mindful meditation, or Anapana meditation, I learned to train my mind to be present and found a deep sense of peace.
In the summer of 2017, just before taking my 300 hour yoga training with Jonny Kest in Michigan, I went to my first silent Vipassana meditation course. Vipassana means “to see things as they really are” and it is where I truly began to understand the meaning of yoga.
One of my favorite yoga quotes by Sharon Gannon is, “You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.” I believe, through my own practice and many spiritual teachings, that our natural state is pure love. The breathing exercises and poses that we practice reveal to us where we are resisting that love towards ourselves and others.
Yoga helps us to break down the walls that we build up in our bodies, minds, and hearts so that we can be free of all the things that hinder us. Free from fear, worries, stressful thoughts, labels, prejudices, expectations, judgments, hate, and anything else that causes separation and holds us back from being our true, authentic selves.
