Yoga Benefits: YOGA POSIVITY

This month is National Yoga Month. I am thrilled to share with you some of the positive benefits from practicing yoga. I know. You might be thinking, snooze fest. Oh joy, a yoga blog! Yep, this is that. Ultimately, I have one thing to ask you, dearest reader:

Machel Shull, Yoga Teacher and Wellness Author

Are you happy with yourself?

This is one of the most important questions we can figure out for ourselves on our journey. If you don’t know the answer to that, that’s okay. Our world keeps evolving, changing. When we practice yoga weekly, we feel happier and life feels less hectic. There is a sense of release from the chaos of life, while we learn to look inward instead, when we feel the need to scrutinize another. Finding grace through the discipline of practicing yoga, helps us love ourselves more and also points to the positive attributes in others.

Are you humble?

This is one of those benefits from touching our toes and learning harder yoga postures, it naturally strips away ego and pride. Releasing lower vibrational thoughts about self helps us to see others in a more beautiful light. As our perception shifts, we turn our attention inward and learn what lessons we must learn for ourselves. When we examine our inward-self (atman), we learn what protective wall must be stripped down to help us reshape our thinking with discernment and a perceptive, positive approach on living.

Yoga helps us to scrutinize our own shortcomings.

Did someone say shortcomings?

Don’t be afraid to take a deep dive into your inner soul and uncover hidden aspects of your personality you never questioned to examine. Yoga takes you on this journey through consistent practice. Without realizing it, one day, you may be finding kinder thoughts for others, when before your outlook might have been more skewed by worldly ideas.

Maybe you are one of those individuals that dislike self-improvement or misconstrue the power of positivity. Or maybe that happiness is like placing your-head-in-the-sand and you don’t have a real concept about life’s struggles. Self Study, svadhyaya becomes the vehicle for that boost in our mood, that burst of bubbliness, that burst of pure joy.

Nothing could be more pure than touching the seat of our soul and discovering a deeper sense of peace. When this begins to happen through the power of practicing yoga consistently, those lower vibrational thoughts just begin to slip away.

Inner joy becomes real.

So, I ask you again, are you happy with yourself? Are you actively pursuing higher moral values? Are you actively caring for others? Yoga Sutra 1:33 asks you to to examine self and to be kind:

Maitri karuna mudita upeksanam sukha duhkha punya apunya visayanam bhavanatah cittaprasadanam

“This sutra advises us to cultivate love for those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, joy for those who are virtuous, and equanimity for those who make mistakes.” -The Yoga Journal

I am excited to be here with you tonight, writing from my heart. I am still humbled by what I learn from my yoga students. I am still humbled by committing to work on self, uncovering the mystery of each new day. I am still humbled each time I practice yoga. I am fascinated by the discoveries that are revealed from learning a new yoga posture or when I am silent and just breathe.

Yoga is a never ending journey away from boredom and uncertainty.

Here are three key factors that allow us to find that inner peace through the of practice yoga:

*We quiet the mind.

*We move the body.

*We listen to the soul speak.

Here is one last quote to share to inspire the soul: “Yoga is the ultimate practice. It simultaneously stimulates our inner light and quiets our overactive minds. It is both energy and rest. Yin and Yang. We feel the burn and find our bliss.”

— Elise Joan

Wishing you well.

Namaste,

Machel Shull (Ma-shel)