Yoga Love

I'm discovering that sometimes the inside of your own head can be very exciting, and that we all possess a certain power to move ourselves that often goes untapped.

When T and I broke up 5-ish months ago, one of the main driving forces behind the split was that I did not feel like myself. I set out on what I suppose you could call a journey inward, as cliche as that sounds, and I've found a number of very accessible things that turn my soul inside out and make me feel like a real Juliana.

One of them is yoga.

I've been doing sun salutations religiously for years now, but a little more dedication and real instruction has opened my eyes to how vast the world of yoga really is. While I'm far from flexible (I have the tightest hamstrings in the world next to my mother), I've learned in the past couple months that yoga is much, much more than that. It is an entire philosophy. The narrow definition of yoga as a physical exercise is, in fact, an entirely western notion. One may take the practice of yoga as far as one wants to go, as well as explore those schools of thought that incorporate it or are related to it, such as Ayurveda and tantra (the root of modern yoga). Whatever your beliefs may be concerning the order of the universe and that of your body, I've found that I benefit from envisioning myself as a series of chakras connected by nadi through which prana is ever-flowing.



Of course, the life-giving breath of the universe flows through the channels of my body.

And yet it makes me feel like so much more than a vessel. When I open my palms and reach towards the sky, whether it be in chair pose or warrior I or even just tadasana, I don't feel as if I'm worshipping some god, as I've been trained to do, but instead accepting the greater truths and most positive energies of the universe into myself, with the promise that as the truth and positivity flow into me, they will also flow out.


Just a place with a whole lotta positive energy.

This is bound to come out wrong, but there is a deep peace to be found in the realization that you, as an individual physical entity, are nothing special. This isn't to say that you're worthless; just that you cannot hold yourself above any other living thing. The same breath of life flows through all of us. Though our senses make us out to be single, closed-off organisms in this world full of physical boundaries, there is a universal harmony that, if we can tune into, may lead us to an internal and external balance accessible to all who wish to find it.

I'm not saying I've found it, and I'm not trying to preach. Yet something must explain the subsiding bitterness for humankind in my head and the growing love for trees in my heart.

My next goal: bakasana.



Namaste, good people of the universe.

xoxo
Juliana