Yoganonymous.com Top 4 Article of 2015

This was a dream to wake up to - thank you to everyone that read this article, loved it and shared it. It means the world to me to have it chosen as one of the top 10 articles in 2015 for yoganonymous.com. Grateful does not begin to describe...

Read the piece below, or check out the original at yoganonymous.com

With love -

Deep down, we all know that we are goddesses in our own right.

Each of us carries the powers of Athena and Lakshmi locked away in all those beautifully strong and feminine parts of ourselves. Yet, we are so quick to forget this as we go through our lives, worrying about groceries and afterschool activities, rushing to work and caring for others. 

When we take the time to come to our mats, a lot can happen in those short moments of solitude and practice. Yoga is so much more than just Downward-Facing Dogs and Sun Salutations. It is a powerful and subtle practice that can change our whole perspective on the world. 

In Sanskrit the word yoga means “to yoke”, to join the small individual self with the divine Self. The premise being that each of us is already divine in our own right, having forgotten this through our identification with our body and individuality.

The more attached we become to our lives, our “can’s” and our “can’ts”, the easier it is forget that we are actually all divine beings capable of anything. For most of us, it is only in those rare moments when we really watch our breath or move into a pose that we thought we couldn’t do that we catch a glimpse of her, that goddess that resides within. 

Over time those rare glimpses will become more frequent. Over time your yoga practice will make you into even more of a goddess than you ever thought possible. 

Here are 5 ways that your yoga practice makes you into a goddess:

1. It creates confidence.

We all started out in the same place: a regular old mat, black yoga pants and an old T-shirt, wondering why we have to pose like a dog and why we are the only ones in the class confused when the teacher stopped speaking English. 

That is where this journey usually begins, but a few years in and suddenly we find ourselves pulling on our brightly colored pants, looking forward to Adho Mukha Svanasana and hoping that the teacher throws a headstand into the mix. 

The practice we do on our mat allows us to tap into that part of ourselves that got boxed away when we graduated from high school. It taps into the little girl that used to love doing cartwheels in the backyard before she got too old for them. It pulls back out that playful element that we all had before we started to worry what other people thought, what’s appropriate and not. We may not have four arms like Lakshmi, but we know we can take on the world, and we’re a little more ready to try.

2. It makes you more beautiful.

All yoga practices, whether they are based in asana (poses), pranayama (breath) or meditation, teach us something about ourselves. The practice is an avenue towards self-awareness, and true self-awareness is one of the most gorgeous things you can drape onto your body. 

When we practice, we can tap into our feminine energies, our masculine energies and our divine light. We can listen to ourselves more fully and appreciate that there is beauty in even our most disliked “flaws” and idiosyncrasies. We realize that we are who and how we are for a reason, and that to be any other way would limit us from finding our most truly beautiful self. 

3. It allows you to drop your labels.

Society has no shortage of labels to put on us, and we carry the weight of those labels along with us each day. Just think about how many of these labels have been applied to you: sister, mother, wife, daughter, playful, stoic, selfish, caring, fat, skinny, weak, strong, sexy, tired, bitchy, confident, overactive, shy, cute, butch... we could go on for pages. 

When we take the time to step on our mats, we allow ourselves to leave those labels at the door. We create a safe space for 30, 60 or 90 minutes, and we tap into that part of ourselves that is divine and unchanging, the part of ourselves that is always beautiful, confident and capable no matter what the world is telling us.  

4. It gives you that “glow”.  

Yes, sometimes that glow is most obviously felt as it drips off your chin in your 15th Chaturanga Dandasana, but that is not the glow I mean here. I am talking about that “wow” factor, that energy that precedes you as you walk into a room. It is that unidentifiable element that causes people to turn their heads, to smile at you or to listen more intently to what you have to say. 

If you been to a great yoga class or been truly inspired by a great speaker, you know what I mean. It is that moment when you’re perfectly balanced and peaceful, ready for anything the world can throw at you. You are confident and beautifully full. At that moment you are unmovable and the goddess within shines forth a light that is intoxicating. 

5. It inspires you to sing. 

It has happened to all of us. You’re walking down the sidewalk, washing dishes or cooking and realize you’re humming. Maybe it was one of those Sanskrit songs from class where you couldn’t understand the words, but the melody was beautiful. Often we’ll assume that the teacher picked the song just because it had a good melody or tempo, but a good teacher will do more than that. She will pick songs with mantras and meanings that reinforce the class’s intention, whether that be healing, strength or playfulness. 

Those songs and mantras are even more powerful when coupled with an asana practice. They carry vibrations through the room, vibrations that change you on a very cellular level.  When those songs pass over your body and get stuck in your head (so that you find yourself humming them as you walk down the street), you’ve unknowingly found a new inspiration. Just by carrying that sound and that mantra with you, you’ve already created more joy and bliss in the body.

We all know that joy and bliss are the first steps to being a goddess. Every goddess is joyful. They all find immeasurable moments of bliss. Sure Durga may find her joy in a different way than Aphrodite, but they live fully, embracing those parts of themselves that are the strongest and most awe-inspiring. 

Keep up the practice. Trust in yourself and remember that each of those goddesses already resides within you too.