Um, wait. Can I change my answer?
One day we make it (finally) to a yoga class. And hopefully, we make it to a second one and then a third. Good things come in threes! 😊 What was it that brought you to yoga and why do you continue to practice? Chances are the answers to those questions are not the same. If you've been a yoga practitioner for some time, more than likely you're practicing for far different reasons than for the ones by which you began.
Because the practice of yoga is the dynamic practice of integrating body, mind and breath, and since our bodies are ever evolving, as is our mindful states in them, our entire practice is changing our entire us. Understanding that is one thing, but embracing change is entirely something else. Why is it most of us do not like change? Hmmmm. What if we reframed "change" into something like a gift to be unwrapped and discovered? What if we realized instead of gripping the things of days gone by, we found that there are new pleasures in the right now? There are always blessings. The sun still rises and days are before us. It's all good when we gain strength to nail that plank hold or balance our Eagle with the steady precision of an eagle's eye. But, what happens when one day our back hurts, knees ache and lifting arms overhead to reach something off a high shelf that was placed there effortlessly a decade ago we can no longer do so effortlessly?
Choice happens.
You choose to stop doing or you choose to keep doing, but you change the way you do and change the way you frame how and what you do. You choose to serve your evolution well.
We know that when we challenge our brains, we can help them be healthy to maintain cognitive function. Btw, yoga is good for our brains. In the same way, when we keep to moving our bodies, when we stop counting reps so that we can listen to our breathing and engage fully into the rhythm of our bodies, we can allow and embrace the evolution of us and our practice. We can explore adaptations in order that we can keep moving. And honesty, it's super cool to lock into an arm balance pose, (and by all means, let's keep going there), but the real value of yoga is in the evolution of us.
With you, I too, am leaning to embrace evolution,
Jill 🌱