5 universal skills yoga teaches

I'm a convert. She started doing hatha yoga just a year ago. This decision was not sensible, rather forced. A month before the start of classes, I underwent a small operation, after which the doctor limited me in physical activity for six months. Letting go for rehabilitation, he forbade me everything I loved: aerobics, step, tai-bo, running and other active areas of fitness. I could not understand how I could live without the usual activities. The doctor suggested that in my case, yoga would not do much harm. This is how my future fate was determined.

I came to the first lesson in a very skeptical mood. And she left the hall as a different person, and this is not an exaggeration. A month after the start, I suddenly realized that I was looking forward to the next practice with almost greater impatience than preschoolers were waiting for Santa Claus.

But I have never considered yoga as a serious alternative to physical activity. Who knew that the physical component of yoga will make less impression on me than the spiritual component. Yes, I began to like my noticeably toned figure. However, having immersed myself deeper in my studies, I began to consider physical improvements only as a pleasant bonus to the internal transformations that were happening to me. Just a year of practice brought me to a new level of spiritual development.

This is what I learned.

1. Breathe

Almost the first thing I heard from the instructor: without proper breathing, yoga is just gymnastics. At first, I did not really understand this statement. Well, suppose I breathe, what does it change? The understanding that breathing is the main instrument of practice came gradually. If you do not breathe correctly, you will not be able to correctly build the asana. You hold your breath, squeeze it and do yourself more harm than good.

Deep breathing relaxes and calms, fast breathing activates. Yoga taught me to breathe mindfully. When I breathe like that, I feel a flow of energy moving inside me, which I myself can direct in the right direction. Tell me who is like that before, I would only twist my finger at my temple.

In what life situations can mindful breathing come in handy? Yes, in every unintelligible and stressful one. When it is impossible to follow the well-known advice: in any incomprehensible situation, go to bed or drink tea. But even when you can "sleep" with a problem or wash it down with tea, it will not be superfluous to breathe it out beforehand.

My choleric temperament, for example, sometimes fails with outbursts of righteous anger. Now, feeling a surge of irritation, I prefer to just breathe for a few minutes. You can do it deeply - four breaths per minute, or not very deeply, counting from 20 to 0. This is an incredibly effective technique that can put your thoughts in order and look at the situation from a different angle. Yes, I do not always manage to remember the magical power of breathing. But disruptions are getting less and less.

2. Let go

There was a funny and instructive incident in the class. For the inverted triangle pose, some of us used wooden bricks. When the asana was performed on one side, it was necessary to take the starting position and only then put the brick on the left. And I, always and everywhere in a hurry, grabbed a brick when I rose from the slope. The instructor, of course, noticed my movement: "Where are you in such a hurry?" “I'm optimizing the process,” I joked. And I heard in response: "Optimizing or not knowing how to let go?"

It became clear that we were talking about something much more important than the movement of a wooden brick in space. Many people literally live their past. Clinging to past situations, they are unable to see their present and are not ready to plan for the future.

How do I use letting go in my everyday life? Like any normal person, I have a mood when unpleasant circumstances of the past come to mind. It would seem that a hundred years have passed since I undeservedly insulted someone under the influence of the moment or, for example, deceived. The people offended by me have long since left the horizon of my life. If I cannot change the consequences of this situation, then what is the point of reliving it over and over again? I can just learn a lesson, forgive myself and move on. Otherwise I will be stuck in the past, like a mouse in a trap. I will lose the strength to get out, instead of moving on my path.

3. Control the ego

At the beginning of yoga classes, I could not resist in any way not to compare myself with other participants in the process. Standing upside down, surreptitiously watched others and noted what they did and what they didn’t. When I got tired of spying on others, I began to pay more attention to myself. It would be what you need if I did not correlate my skills with the skills of my colleagues in the group. I compared and was upset when I saw my lag. I was glad when I realized that I was doing the exercise no worse than others or better than some.

Only over time it dawned on me that I was not doing yoga, but feeding my vanity. Realizing that I would not achieve anything in yoga in this manner, I had to frighten off the ego with a feigned indifference to the colleagues around me with rugs. Then this indifference became a habit.

Experiments with the ego are very relevant to real life. We are all different - in bodies, souls, goals and desires. But for some reason we love to compare ourselves with others. Sometimes the comparison is not in our favor. In this case, we refuse to recognize our merits. Sometimes we see that we are clearly superior to others. And this superiority takes away our intelligence.

When I got to know more yogis from my group, I realized that I had been doing nonsense for a long time. We all had different levels of physical fitness. Former athletes were interspersed with retirees who took up fitness for the first time in their lives. Someone was recovering from illness or childbirth.

4. Be in the moment

To be here and now. It is difficult and sometimes impossible. I suspect that this will always be difficult for me.

Despite trying to breathe consciously and concentrate on my current goal of doing the asana correctly, I can still, like a year ago, catch myself wandering somewhere outside the hall. I suddenly remember that my daughter needs to be helped with crafts for the competition, then I frantically think about how to feed the family for dinner. At this time, my asana floats, as my thoughts float. But one has only to concentrate on the current moment, as the body itself aligns itself in the necessary vectors and is organically located in space, and breathing becomes yogic.

How and why to use this skill in real life? Have you noticed that many significant moments of our life seem to be erased from memory? Because when they happen, we are mentally in a different place. It happens to me, for example, when I am captured by the work on the next text. I can ask my daughter three times in half an hour how things are at school. Or put three cartons of milk in a trolley in the supermarket, although I didn't plan to buy it.

Setting yourself up for the moment is actually not that difficult. To do this, it is enough to remember that this moment will never happen again.

5. Give thanks

At the end of each session comes my favorite moment. After a relaxing shavasana, the instructor invites us to sit down and take any comfortable position.

I sit cross-legged, fold my palms in namaste and tilt my head slightly. Mentally, we begin to thank this day, the universe, ourselves and everyone who is now around, for the inner harmony and energy that the next practice has filled us with. Love and gratitude to us and the world around us flows from the instructor's lips. This love can be felt physically.

Gratitude is one of the best skills we can transfer from yoga to real life. Only the lazy one has not heard about the power of gratitude. After about six months of doing yoga, I felt a strong inner urge to keep a personal gratitude journal. Every night before going to bed, I create a note on my phone. In it, I thank everyone who "made" my day.

And it's somehow easier and better for me to live after these recordings. I reread them later and understand what wonderful people I am surrounded by. And that my life is delightful. And if I sometimes complain about her, it means that I have forgotten the universal yoga lessons.