 | When I was a young child up until about the age of nine years I remember my father would sometimes show us different exercises - postures he could do and then my sisters and I would try to do them. It was great fun and we totally enjoyed doing something with our dad, which for me I now realise also included getting the attention I craved. I always loved doing exercises and being challenged to do even better. |
Another of my memories to do with exercising, although at the time I never related it to exercising, was the time I went to the circus and was captivated watching the trapeze artists and wanting to swing high and go flying through the air as they could do.
At 15-16 years of age I attended my first yoga class, I loved it and when I arrived home from the yoga class I would go into my bedroom and do more exercises or as referred to in yoga, ‘asanas’, for no other reason than I just loved being able to flex my body and feel how good it felt. I continued to go to these classes each week for a few more years up until the time I married and moved to an area where there were no yoga classes.
I returned to doing exercises and aerobics when my children were very young, but yoga was my form of exercise and when it became available within the vicinity, about an hour’s travel from where I was living, I became a very regular attendant. That was in my mid thirties. I began doing my own practice most days at home as well, always challenging myself to be able to stretch and contort my body even more.
That is when I began to get really 'serious' doing what is known as Iyengar yoga, a form of yoga where the asanas are very precise with little regard of the strain I was putting my body through. I practised yoga under a few different teachers both in Australia and in the times when I went to India. As time went on and through the encouragement from friends, I began giving small classes from my home and then once a week in the closest town.
I always enjoyed being flexible and the recognition I received, although at that time I never admitted to myself that the recognition was important to me. It was in fact something I felt I was good at and as there were so many other things that I didn’t feel I was adequate at, yoga was my ‘go to’ to make me feel better about myself.
I never liked other sports of any sort, much disliking the competitiveness involved in most of them, however when I became honest I had to admit I was actually competing with myself, always wanting to be able to get better, pushing my body to its limits and beyond, in reality no different to any other sport.
The first time I went to an Esoteric Yoga class I found it very different and extremely difficult because apart from a few simple movements it was lying down and being still. Still, what was that? It was the opposite of everything I thought yoga was - lying down, being still, connecting to what I was feeling in my body without moving? And to keep bringing my mind back to feeling while I was lying still and not let it wander off was very foreign and difficult for me. Not my cup of tea, I thought.
But there was something in it that felt true and I decided to give it another go and then another, and slowly I began to connect to that natural stillness I could feel within me and within my mind also. I became aware of how I had been allowing my mind to run me, skipping from one thing to another, distracting me from what I was doing and what I didn’t want to feel.
Eventually I was able to remain focused on feeling my body, keeping my mind and body in line with each other - as one, it felt like I had control of my mind and not my mind controlling me.
There is an amazing feeling of completeness and stillness when this begins to happen. When my Esoteric Yoga practice is over, it isn’t really, because I can come back to it no matter what I am doing or where I am throughout my day. Being in conscious presence with what I am doing, not allowing my mind to wander off or distract me is one of the most self-loving things I have ever done for myself.
I still love stretching and exercising my body and feel they are a very important and a responsible part of keeping physically healthy and fit, but now I don’t go to the extremes I used to, choosing to be more gentle in the way I do them.
This however should not be confused with yoga, for the basic meaning of yoga is the union of body and mind and for me there is nothing more magical than the wonderful quality of stillness I connect to when I am doing esoteric yoga.
This hasn’t happened overnight and is still very much a work in progress and will always continue be so as I surrender to allowing myself to go deeper and deeper within connecting to that beautiful stillness that resides within me and in truth in everyone.
Deidre M., Australia
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like to read more about 'stillness' in the following article
Stillness: a return to being
At 15-16 years of age I attended my first yoga class, I loved it and when I arrived home from the yoga class I would go into my bedroom and do more exercises or as referred to in yoga, ‘asanas’, for no other reason than I just loved being able to flex my body and feel how good it felt. I continued to go to these classes each week for a few more years up until the time I married and moved to an area where there were no yoga classes.
I returned to doing exercises and aerobics when my children were very young, but yoga was my form of exercise and when it became available within the vicinity, about an hour’s travel from where I was living, I became a very regular attendant. That was in my mid thirties. I began doing my own practice most days at home as well, always challenging myself to be able to stretch and contort my body even more.
That is when I began to get really 'serious' doing what is known as Iyengar yoga, a form of yoga where the asanas are very precise with little regard of the strain I was putting my body through. I practised yoga under a few different teachers both in Australia and in the times when I went to India. As time went on and through the encouragement from friends, I began giving small classes from my home and then once a week in the closest town.
I always enjoyed being flexible and the recognition I received, although at that time I never admitted to myself that the recognition was important to me. It was in fact something I felt I was good at and as there were so many other things that I didn’t feel I was adequate at, yoga was my ‘go to’ to make me feel better about myself.
I never liked other sports of any sort, much disliking the competitiveness involved in most of them, however when I became honest I had to admit I was actually competing with myself, always wanting to be able to get better, pushing my body to its limits and beyond, in reality no different to any other sport.
The first time I went to an Esoteric Yoga class I found it very different and extremely difficult because apart from a few simple movements it was lying down and being still. Still, what was that? It was the opposite of everything I thought yoga was - lying down, being still, connecting to what I was feeling in my body without moving? And to keep bringing my mind back to feeling while I was lying still and not let it wander off was very foreign and difficult for me. Not my cup of tea, I thought.
But there was something in it that felt true and I decided to give it another go and then another, and slowly I began to connect to that natural stillness I could feel within me and within my mind also. I became aware of how I had been allowing my mind to run me, skipping from one thing to another, distracting me from what I was doing and what I didn’t want to feel.
Eventually I was able to remain focused on feeling my body, keeping my mind and body in line with each other - as one, it felt like I had control of my mind and not my mind controlling me.
There is an amazing feeling of completeness and stillness when this begins to happen. When my Esoteric Yoga practice is over, it isn’t really, because I can come back to it no matter what I am doing or where I am throughout my day. Being in conscious presence with what I am doing, not allowing my mind to wander off or distract me is one of the most self-loving things I have ever done for myself.
I still love stretching and exercising my body and feel they are a very important and a responsible part of keeping physically healthy and fit, but now I don’t go to the extremes I used to, choosing to be more gentle in the way I do them.
This however should not be confused with yoga, for the basic meaning of yoga is the union of body and mind and for me there is nothing more magical than the wonderful quality of stillness I connect to when I am doing esoteric yoga.
This hasn’t happened overnight and is still very much a work in progress and will always continue be so as I surrender to allowing myself to go deeper and deeper within connecting to that beautiful stillness that resides within me and in truth in everyone.
Deidre M., Australia
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like to read more about 'stillness' in the following article
Stillness: a return to being