By Nicole Deacon
My favorite season is the fall. I love when the leaves turn colors (sometimes have to travel to see it) and the weather starts to get the way I like it! It becomes perfect for nights on the patio, afternoon bike rides, and hiking. Summer ends…fall begins… and then we do it again the next year. We accept that there are seasons in the weather…but there are also seasons in our life. Everything has an ebb and a flow. In some ways both are similar to transitioning from one yoga pose to another. We all have moments of joy and clarity and moments of sorrow and fear. We have new love come into our lives and loved ones we cherish leave our lives. This is life…seasons.
Bikram Yoga helps us to stay calm, peaceful, and joyful no matter what season of life we are in. It is easy to be peaceful in a happy situation… yoga practice teaches us to remain calm among the storms of our life as one stays composed during a yoga pose. We start to accept things as they are, instead of as we wish them to be. We learn to control and direct our minds to create the experiences we want. Consistent yoga practice disciplines us to balance how things are and how we want them to be. We do not always have control over the events that happen to us (the weather, parents passing, wars, traffic, etc) but we do have control over how we experience them. We can train our mind to find the value, and to appreciate each moment that comes to us for what it is. If we can remember Rollo May:
“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. “
Yoga class is ultimately about self-awareness and self-realization. Bikram yoga helps us to be conscious of our breathing and more aware of ourselves. Yoga poses challenge us… in a hot, stinky, difficult position… can you breathe? can you find peace… and can you find joy?
It is through continued yoga practice; putting ourselves in a challenging environment that we get better and better at finding peace no matter what is happening around us. Through yoga, we eventually reach that point of bliss where nothing…no one… can steal our peace away.
The Foundry 