The key to having a beneficial yoga practice is simple: take small steps and be consistent in your practice. By small steps I mean not to try to do a 45 - 60 minute asana practice every single day when you are just beginning and expect to stick to it. Start with something simple that you find you receive some benefit from. Now practice it @ the same time in the same place everyday. Once you find that you are diligent in your new practice, you can add to it. For example, you might start with the first limb of yoga which is yama (abstentions).
The very first yama is ahimsa (non-violence). Yama is practiced 3 ways: thought, words and actions. So, maybe for the first week you could notice when you had a violent thought and gently let it go, replacing it with a loving or kind thought. Here are some examples of violent thoughts:
"I am so fat."
"Why don't people like me?"
"I'll never get a better job."
Ah, so now we see that violence can be viewed as mentally beating ourselves up. This is not as obvious to most of us as thinking about harming another person, but I hope we can see how this kind of thinking is just as damaging.
Some loving or kind thoughts might be:
"I am the master of this mind/body complex."
"Every day in every way I am becoming more joy filled."
"I will find meaningful work or meaning in my work."
So, after a week of practicing ahimsa in our thought processes, we might try moving to verbal non-violence which means not saying angry or hurtful things about ourselves and/or others. Then, in the 3rd week physical ahimsa which might include removing animal products from our diets (just a suggestion). If adding to our practice once a week is too much, we could try adding to it once a month. You have the idea.
Sticking with our yoga practice and benefiting from it is more important than how many postures we can do or how we look after doing them. It's about getting to know our true selves past the noise of the outer mind and into the calm, clear waters of our inner being.
Namaste,
S.
The very first yama is ahimsa (non-violence). Yama is practiced 3 ways: thought, words and actions. So, maybe for the first week you could notice when you had a violent thought and gently let it go, replacing it with a loving or kind thought. Here are some examples of violent thoughts:
"I am so fat."
"Why don't people like me?"
"I'll never get a better job."
Ah, so now we see that violence can be viewed as mentally beating ourselves up. This is not as obvious to most of us as thinking about harming another person, but I hope we can see how this kind of thinking is just as damaging.
Some loving or kind thoughts might be:
"I am the master of this mind/body complex."
"Every day in every way I am becoming more joy filled."
"I will find meaningful work or meaning in my work."
So, after a week of practicing ahimsa in our thought processes, we might try moving to verbal non-violence which means not saying angry or hurtful things about ourselves and/or others. Then, in the 3rd week physical ahimsa which might include removing animal products from our diets (just a suggestion). If adding to our practice once a week is too much, we could try adding to it once a month. You have the idea.
Sticking with our yoga practice and benefiting from it is more important than how many postures we can do or how we look after doing them. It's about getting to know our true selves past the noise of the outer mind and into the calm, clear waters of our inner being.
Namaste,
S.
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