When 2018 rolled around, I was in a bit of a funk.
My yoga practice wasn’t really going anywhere. I had laid off running because I couldn’t get one of my hips to cooperate, and I just was feeling stuck and didn’t know what to do about it.
My husband, and our oldest daughter had headed to the Olympics, and I decided I was going to go try something I had wanted to try for a LONG time. A Naturaletics class. A mix of natural movement, yoga and some gymnastics. 🙂
I never had held handstands (with help) but none the less, handstands so long in my life. I literally felt like I was walking on air the rest of the day. I felt freedom I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Did everything shift that day? No, but I was able to break through a lot of barriers in one hour. Mindset, mental conversations, emotions, negativity–going upside down and being pushed out of my comfort zone–helped me begin breaking through some barriers I didn’t know how to break through on my own.
In my pre-yoga life, I would have tried to run it off and keep shoving down what I didn’t like or understand. One of the valuable lessons that God has used yoga to teach me is that when I shove emotions down, I don’t give Him space to speak truth and break up the lies.
When we think we are being holy by shoving them down and pretending they don’t exist, we really are not trusting God to help us sort them out and heal our wounds and reshape our minds. Movement is a beauiful tool for God to reshape us. When we keep moving, hold poses, find ease in the effort, slow down when we want to rush, stay in the moment instead of thinking ahead to what is coming next, we are learning to stay with the emotions and the struggle and learn the lessons God has for us to learn.
Photo credit: Naturaletics