You can probably think of a few reason why you first became interested in yoga; everyone is doing it, you need to get more flexible, work is stressful, you want a yoga body, you like the challenge, to become more spiritual or because the teacher is hot. No matter what brought you here, welcome. What a beautiful discipline and practice to have. It’s safe to say that for many of us, yoga is life.

Today we began to learn about how deeply tied yoga is to our inner being. Our day was filled with hip openers. We practiced them in the morning session. In the afternoon we  workshopped and broke each pose down to a science. Perhaps you’ve heard about the hips and your emotions. You see that’s the beautiful thing about practicing yoga. It is both physical and emotional.  “The holistic system of yoga was designed so that these emotional breakthroughs can occur safely,” says Joan Shivarpita Harrigan, Ph.D., a psychologist and the director of Patanjali Kundalini Yoga Care in Knoxville, Tennessee. “Yoga is not merely an athletic system; it is a spiritual system. The asanas are designed to affect the subtle body for the purpose of spiritual transformation. People enter into the practice of yoga asana for physical fitness or physical health, or even because they’ve heard it’s good for relaxation, but ultimately the purpose of yoga practice is spiritual development.” 

Most of us knew this to be true but we were not expecting all of our different responses. So many emotions were flowing through the yoga deck. Somehow mother earth heard our cries and met us for comfort. During our evening session the sky opened up and the rain poured. The room was quiet after class. Emotions were ruling a lot of our minds and bodies. After dinner some of us went out to the deck to watch the amazing show Mother Earth put on. Lightening bolts ripped through the sky illuminating the ocean. Speachless. Wow, this yoga thing is powerful.

Peace &  Light.