This entry was posted on Aug 6, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
Why follow yoga? There’s a multitude of various solutions to this query. As with every longterm relationship, over time, our follow evolves; it ebbs and flows. Typically our follow feels recent and very important; different occasions it might really feel as if we’ve hit a plateau. At occasions we could drop the follow for some time, and at others we could stay up for stepping onto the mat or sitting on our meditation cushion. It may be useful to recollect why we determined to prioritize yoga follow within the first place. Reflecting on our preliminary motivation to follow might help us keep not solely consistency, but in addition inspiration.
3 Ideas for Creating Motivation to Apply
Once I take a look at my motivation to follow, I’ve discovered that it’s actually easy. I follow as a result of after 37 years of meditation and 43 years of yoga, I acknowledge the immeasurable worth they convey to my life. I don’t follow as a result of some terrible hurt would befall me if I don’t. It’s not merely one thing I’ve added to my each day to-do record. It’s not a ought to. I belief the follow. I place confidence in the follow. And it’s not blind religion, however a religion that’s been verified by way of a long time of expertise.
How will we develop motivation to follow? Whether or not our core follow is yoga or meditation, we regularly have to be reminded why we’re doing it. Listed here are some ideas for staying on the trail:
- Consider your follow as a part of your morning ritual, a option to keep the well being of your physique/thoughts. We don’t suppose twice about consuming a good breakfast, brushing our enamel, showering, and many others. Yoga and meditation practices are they methods we deliver equilibrium to our our bodies and minds.
- Once you put aside the time to follow, give it your full consideration. You’ve obtained loads of time to go over your to-do record, or to replicate on that tough dialog you had with somebody yesterday. You’ve obtained time to formulate your reply to that individual—later. Use your follow time to take a position your full consciousness into what you are feeling in your physique and thoughts, right here and now. Your follow time is treasured. It deserves your consideration and care.
- Mirror on the worth of your follow in your each day life. In accordance with the yoga sutras, the good thing about asana follow is the cultivation of equanimity within the face of the ups and downs of our lives. This will apply to minute each day annoyances, or it may apply to main challenges and losses. The advantages could be delicate or apparent. What advantages have you ever skilled? Reflecting on this may remind you why you follow and might help you keep motivated.
Belief Your Yoga and Meditation Practices
Reflecting on the worth of follow in your life could be tough. Whereas there are advantages you possibly can really feel instantly while you follow yoga and meditation, among the deeper advantages are delicate. That is the place reflecting on the millennia-long historical past of those practices could be useful. Yoga and meditation have survived for 1000’s of years. They’ve survived as a result of hundreds of thousands of individuals have reaped their advantages. So even in case you’re simply beginning out, and the advantages you expertise are on the subtler aspect, belief the method. Strategy your follow with an open, curious thoughts. Mirror on why you’re keen on your follow. Then seize your meditation cushion or your yoga mat, open your thoughts and see the place your follow takes you in the present day.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and folks sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.