Yoga

Over the past month or so, I’ve been re-examining yoga and my relationship to it. I’ve been taking a deeper look at the Eight Limbs of Yoga, working to educate myself further on yoga history and roots, and on introducing my classes and readers to this information. I’ve also been thinking about why we practice yoga, or at least historically, at its roots, why yoga was practiced. Basically, what is yoga really all about? 

The word yoga means “to yoke” or to join. For some, this could mean joining of the mind, body, and spirit that happens in yoga - or the combination of movement, breath, and focus/letting go. For others it could be the joining of people together (especially when practiced in a group setting, even virtually), reminding us that we’re part of a community or collective bigger than just our individual person. To me though, yoga is a process of coming back home to ourselves. It’s a practice through which we can join our “little s self” (the individual person) and our “Big S Self” (the “essense” of us that exists even beyond our individual self). Or if you’re a little unsure of this specific wording, think of the big S self as the piece of you that doesn’t feel quite tangible -it’s that part of you that you might feel connected to when you’re out in nature; that part of you that’s deeply moved by music or dance or song or some other form of expression; that you experience when you pause and take some quiet time for yourself and you’re able to look inward.