All the Reasons I Am Grateful For Yoga

For many years, yoga and I had a very on-again, off-again relationship; I traipsed in and out of classes and studios during my high school and early college years but never allowed myself the opportunity to truly commit to a physical or spiritual practice — I was very busy, after all. After a few semesters of overeating, overthinking, and overpartying, I felt disconnected from my body and knew it was time to get serious about my health. Though I grew up dancing and cheering, I was never much of a conventional athlete — the idea of running a mile made me shudder — but yoga seemed just my speed.

After keeping up with a consistent practice, my body and mind started to reap the benefits. Here are a few of the gifts I never could have expected receiving from yoga.

Yoga gave me a kind of awareness about my muscles, joints, and mental state that I had never experienced. Once I began regularly practicing, I found myself checking in with my body in and outside of the yoga studio, realizing things I had never been cognizant of before. As I started listening to my body and began to take my practice seriously, the shift spilled its way into other facets of my life. I started eating better, partying less, and supporting my needs more. For the first time in my life, I moved and fueled myself in ways that felt caring.

If you're serious about your practice progressing and evolving, you have to step out of your comfort zone. At one point, I thought that I would be able to wake up one day with the magic ability to tackle tough arm-balancing postures, but I soon learned this wasn't the case. Those yogis you see in class holding a Firefly or Handstand so comfortably? That took years of trying, falling, and making loud (sometimes embarrassing) noises in class. Once I stopped being so concerned about how advanced I appeared in class, I was able to move past my mind's limitations, feel the fear, and trust my own body's strength.

When you want to learn new poses, it's essential to feel free and relaxed in your body and align your breath with your movement — this too did not come for me overnight. I had always considered myself to be a relatively "chill" person, but as I would feel myself tighten up and become frustrated in difficult poses, yoga helped me realize just how much tension and anxiety I was holding in my body every single day. Learning how to check in with my breath and slow things down has made a huge difference in the quality of my practice, and far off my mat, it began to transform my relationships and day-to-day responsibilities. Taking this quality of breath to my everyday life has helped me calm down, see things clearly, and take a step back when necessary.