The reality of all humans is this: it is quite literally impossible to find peace outside of yourself. You may find places or people that help you to fleetingly feel more peaceful; all of us do. But you can’t look to them or expect them to create or hold your peace for you. You have to learn to do that for yourself.

When you understand the importance of cultivating your own inner peace, you begin to see yoga as life practice.

For myself, I’ve learned over the years that yoga is not a physical practice. Sure, you are doing physical things, but without mindfulness and an effort to grow emotionally and spiritually through your practice, all you’re doing is making weird shapes.

When you understand the importance of cultivating inner peace, you begin to see yoga as life practice, rather than an exercise class. Through it, you receive the instruction and the ability to begin to look inward. You begin to develop the ability to find, cultivate, and hold your own peace. If you are really intentional, you can learn to practice bringing that ability back out into the world for use in other areas of your life.

Life, Like Yoga, is Not About Perfection

My favorite yoga teachers always have a little life lesson woven into the framework of their practice. They’ll keep bringing your attention back to how you can learn from every moment of stress and calm and breath throughout their class. Over the past 20ish years that I’ve been incorporating yoga into my fitness and health routine, I’ve realized that yoga has taught me more than just how to focus and breathe and balance on one leg. It has taught me some valuable lessons about how to truly live in a place of emotional honesty and self acceptance.

Am I perfectly at peace with myself at all times? Of course not. Just like I’m never a perfect yogi with the best outfit and the most bendy hips. What I am, is myself. I’ve come to learn that a state of imperfect self-ness is actually preferable to being someone else’s version of perfect or peaceful.

Put Yoga Techniques Into Practice Beyond Your Mat

I have come to value the spiritual practice of yoga as much or more as the physical practice. Believe me, when you let go of the expectation to achieve a certain goal or level of practice, you allow yourself to learn how to apply the meditative practices of yoga to the rest of your life.

Here are the 9 most important yoga/life lessons I take with me beyond my mat:

1 First, Breathe. There is no yoga without breath. There is no life without breath. How can you expect to ever find peace in anything if you are struggling to breathe through it? Furthermore, when you start any thought or action with a breath, what follows after is always more intentional.

2 Keep your heart open. Not only does this help you to breathe, it helps you to balance yourself both physically and mentally. While you’re at it, keep your head up and your shoulders back. This promotes good posture, and a more balanced outlook. Finally, not only does good posture make you look skinny, it helps you feel more confident.

3 The flow is more important than the finish. In yoga, as in life, you are most likely ending your flow in corpse pose, after all. Why not enjoy the experience of movement during the practice rather than racing to the end?

4 Be comfortable in the shapes you make. You’re different than everybody else. Don’t try to mimic someone else’s shapes. You will never feel strong or comfortable in yourself if someone else is your yardstick for success.

5 Don’t be afraid of leaning on props. This is a really meaningful one for me. My tendency, as I know many of you share, is to insist I am capable of handling everything without help. The truth is, props are only a tool to support us and help us do things better. They are not a weakness or a sign of a lack of knowledge or ability.

6 You WILL fall. How you get back up matters more than when or how you fall. A fall is not an ending. Nor should it be a cause for judgement. Instead of expressing frustration or judgement because you fall, find a way to be proud of how you find your way back into the flow.

7 There will always be someone stronger and more flexible than you. What matters is how strong and how flexible you are in comparison to yourself, in your own unique experience and imperfect physical body.

8 Some days you are stronger or more flexible than yourself. Not every day can be your best. But you can always work to practice in the most able and honest place available to you on that day, in that moment. 

9 You will not be an expert at everything. The flow is more meaningful than any one pose. You can’t create a yoga practice or a life practice by mastering a single pose. You must be able to flow through them all with serenity and evenness in order to consider your practice a success. In fact, you’ll probably be mediocre at the majority of what you do, and excellent at just one or two. I’m not even ashamed to tell you that my most impressive pose is still chavasana after almost 20 years of yoga. Be open to this, it means you excel in at least one thing.

I hope at least a few of these lessons ring true to you, whether you are a fellow yogi or not. The truth is, in order to be at peace we must stop trying to find it outside of ourselves. Learning to accept what we each bring to our own unique experience is a very effective way of opening ourselves up to peace, happiness, and intention in our lives.

If you’re struggling with the idea of any of the above, I have a bonus question for you:

Are you comfortable in chaos?

So many of you actually find it easier to be in the midst of intense movement and difficulty, because you don’t have to spend any of that frenetic energy looking at your inner self or trying to cultivate peace. If you are one of the ones who finds comfort in chaos, can you find the strength to embrace stillness and look inside yourself? Can you work to find and hold your own peace outside of the chaos?

With that, I draw this lesson to an end. The light and love in me sees and honors the light and love in you. Namaste.

XOXO,

P.S. A perk of doing mountain yoga in a dress is the opportunity to see views like this. Colorado definitely puts on some beautiful sunsets.