The other day in class I had someone ask me if I am calm all the time. My reply was “No, I can be quite fiery at times,” with a giggle. The person than responded “Oh good that makes me feel better.” That question stuck in my mind and reminded me of when I first started my yoga journey. I felt inspired by the yoga instructor and truly thought she had bliss down to a T and I couldn’t imagine her ever feeling angry. As I continued to journey on my yoga mat, I realized that yoga wasn't there for me to experience 100% bliss, it was there to help me find clarity and growth during the challenging times.
The intention is to provide the tools to help us find ease and clarity when challenging emotions arise. In my eyes, the emotions that we feel uncomfortable feeling such as anxiety, anger, fear, sadness etc are apart of our human experience, denying ourselves the experience to feel them will only make the experience harder.
Step into your yoga space to explore the tools and wisdom that are being shared and use them when life feels overwhelming. This practise is here for you to connect with yourself, empower yourself and find growth with the uncomfortable experience as opposed to stagnation.
I will share that I have a fiery side, I can be easy going, calm, giggly, lighthearted and kind. I can also be irritable, angry, critical and anxious. I experience it all and do not deny myself the experience of the heavier emotions as they teach me lessons and are apart of my journey. If I didn’t feel them, I feel I wouldn’t have much to share with you and therefore wouldn’t feel authentic to my teachings.
I have changed as a person since yoga has come into my life, I am more light hearted, less serious about life and I can laugh at myself. I’ve simmered the self judgment and I will openly say I have connected with an abundance of self love as there was a time in my life where I did not love myself at all. I am so grateful and in aw about the strength my body has. My ego can be mean to me, I am very much aware of it and am still experiencing it as this is part of my current journey. I don’t practise yoga everyday, I practise when I feel called to practise. I don’t like to force myself into practise when my body doesn’t want to move. There are times where it craves stillness so I meditate instead. There are times when I should move and I don’t, and than there are times where I am so consistent with my practise that I feel on top of the world. I am human and I have my own storms in my life, I am yin and yang.
If you are being hard on yourself because you are not not consistent with your practise or you feel so down and want to hide from the world, please don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s okay to feel the way you are feeling, it’s okay to miss a practise.
I see a lot of memes on social media about keeping the negative energy away, positive vibes only. I think it’s great people are aware when heavier emotions do start to define us and don’t benefit us, but I feel we have become so afraid of the deemed to be “negative emotions” that we don’t want to feel them all together. That we are searching for 100% bliss. That’s not right in my eyes, it’s okay to feel them. You need to, in order to heal and grow. There is a fine line between feeling them and than letting them define you but I can’t determine that line for you, that is up to you. Please don’t be afraid of the deemed to be “Negative emotions,” don’t be hard on yourself when you are feeling them. It’s all apart of the journey and they can be used as a positive.
Yoga, meditation, alternative treatments are there to help you feel them and move through them, to gain insight and clarity to your current life situation so you can come back to peace, acceptance, letting go and healing.
Step onto your yoga mat as you are, angry, happy, sad, inspired, whatever it is allow yourself to be as you are and set an intention for what energy you’d like to bring in.
Authenticity at it’s finest.
Written by Jadine Hertz
Yoga Instructor & Holistic Therapist
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