Hot Yoga Topics > How has Your Practice Changed You
Awesome forum, Alex!
Yes, 90 minutes of open eye meditation aka falling in love with myself aka being the best version of myself has infiltrated many parts of my life. The biggest one is being able to know that difficult things will pass - just like the 90 minutes, there is an end to everything. Which helps me visualize how I'm going to get through things in 26 steps or less!
KristinaS
If anything, the 26 postures are 26 tools that we have in our arsenal to combat any problem. I like balancing on one leg and locking it when I'm getting dressed in the morning - it reminds me that I can do anything!
KristinaS
I love that you balance on one leg in the morning! I can't even hold a conversation.... I've often thought about pretending I don't speak English to avoid convo in 7/11... Audrey Hepburn said"Always be a First Rate Version of Yourself" Yoga makes people that first rate version. It polishes our soul's silverware and sets the table (like Pranayama) I don't know how it works or helps so much but it does. I was severely depressed when I started practicing... I was taking medication and seeing a therapist. After consistently going to different studios and really immersing myself I feel so much better physically and mentally.
AlexandriaS
I do that too! (balance on one leg at a time), as I put my shoes on every day, it reminds me of this journey I am on. I am no stranger to depression, low self esteem, fear... For me finding this hot yoga and now committing to teacher training has opened a door to an inner self that was waiting to be discovered. Things in my life, my own self, and my surroundings and relationships have been consistently improving, changing, growing.... leading up to finding this wonderful healing yoga! I know this is the catalyst for the confidence, self love, peaceful, joyful life I experience today! Feeling Blessed and Grateful
KimA
I have definitely become a less judgmental, more 'live and let live' type of a person ever since I began my hot yoga journey. I'm not as hard on myself as I used to be, and in fact I often applaud myself for all that I have accomplished and all that I commit to accomplishing.
Lately I have been shedding the negative people and situations in my life and instead of trying to change negative people to be more positive, I focus on being happy and welcoming others into my life who also want to exist on a higher plane.
Marguerite
Welcome to Teacher Training, Kim...you are about to find out that being in balance, like being off balance, can both be joyful!
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Marguerite I am glad to hear that you applaud yourself and now I am going to challenge you: change it from often to everyday. As far as shedding those negative people - consider that they are simply falling away because you are no longer attracting them. You are demagnetized to negativity and attracting the people and situations that are your highest good because, hey, like attracts like.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
As a former Dancer, balancing on one leg is something I have always enjoyed doing. However, now since finding RiverFlow, I do it in a different way. Since finding Riverflow I have found that I am doing many things differently than I use to and I have learned that Yoga is something I love and I want to help other people love it as much as I do. TT hear we come
GabbyL
Nice to hear that you enjoy balance: yoga teachers us that what is true in your body is a reflection of what is also true in your life. This is how your body is your best friend - no matter what it feels like on any given day - as it is always giving you insight into where you are headed in your life.
And know that your sheer love of yoga will draw your students to you.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
I enjoy yoga for different type of balance - mental balance. It is a place where I can calm my ADD brain (self diagnosed, of course!) for 90 minutes. In that final savasana, I feel so much more at peace. I leave class feeling renewed and re-balanced which is something I never found until I found hot yoga.
HeatherS
Good feeling, Heather - but dont knock ADD: Leonardo da Vinci had it. So did most people once revered as Renaissance men and women: lots of interest and inquisitiveness....and genius. As long as you dont waste all that attention on worry, you're golden.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Hot yoga has helped me to become a better me when I am home. The 90minutes to completely clear and quiet my mind allowing me to be calm at home.
GabbyL
That's the hallmark of a good practice Gabby; it translates out of the confined space of a studio and impacts the larger space of your life. How you do anything is how you do everything. Practicing with patience in hot yoga eventually becomes living with patience at home and everywhere else.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
"How you do anything is how you do everything" is something we've been talking about in teacher training lately, and I've been letting it simmer all week this week. It really makes me realize how important yoga practice is to my life, and what a change it's made. Like a lot of people here have said, yoga becomes almost addicting- I can't wait to get to class each week. For me, taking time to shut my brain off and just be was something that never happened before yoga. I had to make a concerted effort to try and relax- have you ever tried to force yourself to relax? A little contradictory. In yoga, you don't have to try. You just do yoga, and the relaxing happens. And I know it will happen, so of course it does. And since how you do anything is how you do everything, I can feel it creeping into the way I am all throughout the day. Just letting things be and doing what feels good- why have I not been doing this my whole life???
Chrissy Graziano
You HAVE been doing (or more accurately, being) this your whole life Chrissy - thats why it feels so natural to you now.
Its true, it can feel like you've been efforting and struggling instead of going with the flow - but think of it this way: underneath there is still a huge, deep, powerful current of well-being; it has never gone away and in fact, as you ask for more and more of what you want in your life, that current gets stronger. The day you put down the oars and stop paddling upstream, that current takes you - Whooooosh! - swiftly downstream to everything you want. Feel good about all the past "efforting" as it has all contributed to the momentum of your River. And everything you asked for has been there, lining the shores of your river, waiting for you to float by.
Dont blame yourself, Chrissy - no on gave you gold stars for relaxing when you were in school! Even though you were born knowing, you were trained away and into the opposite: set goals, have a plan, get an education, face reality, no pain/no gain, stop living in a dream
You ARE living a dream - this life has all the same qualities as a dream including that YOU create its parameters.
"Forcing yourself to relax" - yes, it seems we've taken on yoga, meditation and relaxation the same way we take on all goals (and now its trendy: breathe is the new black!). This is like putting down the oars and floating downstream...but still being so preoccupied with the END GOAL (RE; Alan Watts) that you float right by all those wonderful things lining the shores of your river: you're too stressed to notice.
Relax, do yoga, eat chocolate for the JOY of it. Joy is the most powerful momentum, putting you directly into your Riverflow....
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
I love the river analogy! It feels like in the last couple of weeks my perspective has really started to change, and I'm so much happier to do what I'm inspired to do, instead of finishing my to-do list. Everything is working out for me, just like it always has. But realizing that things are always working out for me, and I don't need to struggle to make that happen has been HUGE. I've suddenly started allowing myself to do what feels good, knowing that everything will work out. So different from the days of, "I'm going on a run to get my mind off of X,Y, and Z."
Chrissy Graziano
So happy to hear this Chrissy - and thanks for sharing is so effusively on our call last night! It is a wonderful moment when "everything is always working out for me" becomes a belief rather than an adage!
Now - how did that groundhog work his way out of your house last night lol?
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Aaahhhhh, yes, everything IS ALWAYS working out for me. And I know now, that is HAS always been working out for me because I used to and still do, say it to myself. Hot yoga was the next thing for me like it was just waiting to come in when I was ready for it. I feel truly happy inside and out and everything looks so vivid to me now. Like when I drive to the studio, the trees are so alive, bright and clear so much more than a year ago. I notice everything now and revel in everything around me.
Lisa O'Rourke
This is beautiful LIsa, When you have these experiences - you suddenly see the trees so alive and bright and beautiful - you are seeing with the Source part of you - that larger part that knows everything is here on this playground of Life, just for you. And yes - it always has been. This larger You is the part you are becoming most familiar with - thats the You that's always been and still is and can truly enjoy all of it. Yoga is a beautiful way to awaken that part of You and your hot yoga practice will ALWAYS be this for you...
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
I think I would ask myself how yoga HASN"T changed me. I, like many people, started yoga because the people I met that practiced yoga seemed physically beautiful. Little did I realize that it's a whole package. Their beauty had more to do with the peace, calm and happiness they exuded that attracted me.
Since I started practicing yoga I have learned so many tools to become a me that I like so much. I am, happy, calm, less judgmental, more appreciative, I feel love in a whole broader way. It is amazing!!
Since TT I have also realized that struggling on my mat to get everything "perfect" is really counter productive. I have learned that I have the magical power of my breath. I not only use it to make my yoga practice flow easier. It has also helped me everyday create an easier flow in my life.
It is the best religion I could have found and finally feel connected with.
Jeanne
Agree with Jeanne, the "beauty" is really more to do about peace, calm, happiness. I'm finding my mind much clearer. from the practice of yoga, to the meditation, the exercises/plurks, all is contributing to me being a more confident, relaxed, focused, happy person. the physical benefits, my body becoming more "sculpted" ever so slightly, but noticeable, to even Ken, is pleasantly surprising. And, as I continue, will grow. so it's been an all around life benefit, which I'll continue to share with others.
amy
It is always so gratifying to read these comments from Teachers Trainees at Riverflow...can you even remember back to who you were before you began this TT? Amy...can you even remember that woman who didnt think she could do it and wanted to quit? Honestly I can barely remember any of your BTT (before Teacher Training) because the moment you registered I already saw you at this point and even beyond: as a Hot Yoga Teacher. You are inches from graduation but I am telling you that SO MANY MORE TRANSFORMATIONS are about to come your way in these last few weeks: you are at a point where the "holds" are off and the changes will be exponential from this point forward. HERE COMES THE FUN!
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
I am so happy I am doing TT. I feel like a whole new person when in fact I'm finally the real me. I'm fun again and calm and I'm learning to live in the present. I love my practice. I feel so confident and energized afterwords. I wasn't sure how I was going to fit this into my life and it turns out this gave me my life.
Erica
Isn’t it beautifully Erica that when we decide to remember that life is supposed to be fun - a joyful adventure above all else including our own habit of thinking of life as a series of joyless obligations - that we quickly discover what we never really lost: our own enthusiasm for living!
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
I've begun to crave Yoga in the same way I crave caffeine and sunny days. It's wonderful. I put my hands up in Half Moon in the Mall bathrooms and Starbucks. I love feeling my spine and stretch and my arms extend. In the face of difficulty Yoga has been the tough mother that both loves and disciplines. It's made me so much of a better person in many ways. It's cheaper than therapy and gives me that special Time I Need to Be the Best I can be.... How has it helped you? How have you discovered it?