“In a quest for your personal freedom, or Moksha (liberation), what is yoga to you? My journey on the mat started in 2003 with a Bikram class. The rigidity and need for control did not feel like yoga to me. I practiced the same sequence at Corepower Yoga and had a very different experience. My first teacher there, Omaur Bliss, taught me that yoga should be joyful, playful, and accepting, while still being challenging. It was there that I looked in the mirror, into my eyes (my soul) and began an inward journey into healing, self-love, and self-acceptance. Over the years I discovered that I resonate most deeply with the path of Bhakti Yoga, a path that is focused on love, devotion, and surrender. Bhakti is just one of the paths of yoga, “Each is suited to a different temperament or approach to life. All the paths lead ultimately to the same destination-to union with Brahman or God-and the lessons of each of them need to be integrated if true wisdom is to be attained.” International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres.
Through Kirtan, I feel most connected to myself and to the source through the music, singing and chanting and the energy it radiates. My heart is open and I am alive. It has taken me 12-years of practicing yoga and 7-years of teaching yoga to learn this about myself. I learned that in addition to Bhakti, you can now find me in a Kundalini yoga class and mostly trying to live the yoga way of life off of the mat with a daily focus on the Yamas and the Niyamas from Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. The beautiful thing is that we have the freedom to explore different styles of yoga, to remember the words of Mahatma Ghandi, "Truth is one, paths are many." And that yoga is not the only path. The path of Tantra, Buddhism, Tao, Jesus (love) will also bring us home. When I stop to consider that first teacher (Omaur), the one who helped me understand that yoga is intended to be healing, has the last name “Bliss,” I can only smile. I have fallen in love with this incredible gift called life. I now know that all the peace and bliss is within.
Along the journey, I appreciated yoga classes from the amazing teacher Seane Corn, because she spoke from the heart; authentic and vulnerable and always with the feeling of devotion. Sunday morning classes are my favourite classes to teach. I call them "church" yoga: devotional, with intention and prayer. Yoga, to me, is coming back to myself, my source, the truth. An opportunity to hear myself so I can hear others. An opportunity to love myself, so I can love others. An opportunity to connect with myself, so I can connect with others. A sacred and safe space for self exploration, self study, self awareness, emotional healing, personal growth and spiritual evolution. Yoga became a tool to purify my body from emotional toxins, to gain mastery over my mind, to help me become aware of judgements, to release negativity, to keep my heart open day after day, to deepen my dedication, devotion, and gratitude to something larger than myself. Yoga became a place to learn how to rise humbly and fall gracefully. Each movement became a prayer with hands up in the air as we surrender and feet deeply grounded as we grow roots.
I decided to share yoga because I wanted to help others heal, to help others recognize and reach their full potential, to have, above all else, the courage and the conviction to remain true to oneself. For yoga to be a spiritual path that allows people to experience inner peace, to become more peaceful human beings. I wanted to share yoga as a tool to learn how to love, respect, and accept ourselves so that we can love, respect, and accept others; and to recognize our divinity.
Which yoga path speaks to you and your individual journey? What is yoga to you?
Please share; I would love to hear. Connect with me via email: [email protected] and join me on a recent Instagram endeavour; openyourheartyogaproject. An effort to get back to the roots of yoga, to move from the head to the heart, to open the heart, to live from the heart to experience your own individual freedom and to above all else, live authentically: “In a world where you can be anything, be yourself.”