yoga (Photo credit: GO INTERACTIVE WELLNESS)

We’re all familiar with the saying “When life hands you lemons, make lemon aid”. It sounds almost too easy that we sometimes resent the statement itself. When you’re in the middle of  hard times the last thing you think to yourself is “Man, this will be easy to get over or get through”.

At some point during our lives we all find ourselves down and out, whether its lack of money, relationship problems, health issues, loosing a job, etc. We can’t be defined by the problem, we have to work at only being defined by how we find our way back or how we pick ourselves up after falling down.

What better way to do that than to work at something everyday not only building our physical strength but by also building our metal and emotional state.

It’s been proven that yoga does wonders for our body, but it also works out our mind by teaching us how to be present in the moment. It’s a wonderful thing when you figure out how to quiet and calm the mind.

The gratification is being able to “practice” it without being perfect at it. During my certification to become a teacher I quickly learned what my body could and couldn’t handle. I had a pre-existing elbow injury that severely hampered my ability to work through certain poses without hurting myself more. I got discouraged thinking “how could I become an instructor when I couldn’t do a lot of the poses just to get through the course?”. I got in contact with my teacher and explained the issue, before I got done complaining he stopped me and explained that there were a lot of modifications that I could do that would keep me on track, and the good news was that I would have to learn and understand them myself in order to help my students with their own issues.

Once my course was complete I had a better idea of what type of class I wanted to teach, I could teach any program I wanted but because I had dealt with some pretty specific issues I felt it was important that I geared at least a few of my classes to restorative yoga. I knew once I started planning it out that I was headed in the right direction and I would be able to give back and really help people out.

Yoga has been a huge part of my life even during some not-so-good times. We all get lost and sidetracked, but we have to find our way back. For me, I think the hardest battle is within my own mind, I worry too much and anxiety is not far behind, I retract and turn inward then depression is right around the corner and I can’t run and hide from myself so the best way to tackle the hard times is to find something that builds me up and makes me strong again. Understanding the dark times makes it that much easier for me to promote the benefits of yoga to my students.

In the coming weeks I will be sharing some of my personal yoga programs with you. I plan on creating detailed explanations on what poses to do and accompany them with the modifications needed to ensure that everyone can do it!

JUST BREATHE