I was listening to an educational series about prenatal yoga and she was talking about how she had heard through her time of teaching the quote, "yoga poses are not for us to keep. We borrow them, and return them through different seasons of our life."
WOW.
Can you say, mind blown? I cannot tell you guys how much this clicked with me, especially being pregnant right now. I have always said in a class that I am teaching, or speaking to someone regarding yoga, "It's okay if you can't touch your toes, use the body you have today. Not the body you had 5 years ago, or the one you will have after practicing regularly for 6 months." and I truly believe that. Its helped me along my practice tremendously... but hearing it put this way that these poses are for us to borrow and return is so nice. It's a great reminder, that this is a life practice, and that there is a relationship connection from our body to our yoga practice. It's reaffirming that as our body changes, and goes through different seasons that our yoga practice looks different. We may be able to do bird of paradise at one point, but then something happens, or your body changes and it isn't as accessible to you, but now you are able to tap in emotionally or mentally in a whole new way that you weren’t able to before. Or maybe even a different pose is physically accessible to you that was not before.
It is so important to love and respect our bodies through different seasons of life. I know, I know, "That's a lot easier said than done." TOTALLY. I get it. I am not preaching from the mountain tops. I am just simply stating that it is important., and that this is something I am working on too. We cant hate our bodies into a certain pose. We can't hate our bodies into something we love more. It starts with accepting where we are at, respecting what our bodies have gone through, and loving our body and what it does for us, daily. You may never be able to do what you did, or look how you looked when you were 19, and THAT IS OKAY. When and how can we learn to accept this?
For me, yoga is a great place to start working on this. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and possibly even some suggestions on how you have learned, or even how you may be working on how to accept your body in the season of life you're in, or have been in?
XOXO,
Mak
