This entry was posted on Aug 6, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
Why apply yoga? There’s a multitude of various solutions to this query. As with all longterm relationship, over time, our apply evolves; it ebbs and flows. Typically our apply feels recent and important; different occasions it might really feel as if we’ve hit a plateau. At occasions we might drop the apply for some time, and at others we might 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 apply within the first place. Reflecting on our preliminary motivation to apply may also help us keep not solely consistency, but in addition inspiration.
3 Ideas for Growing Motivation to Observe
Once I have a look at my motivation to apply, I’ve discovered that it’s actually easy. I apply as a result of after 37 years of meditation and 43 years of yoga, I acknowledge the immeasurable worth they create to my life. I don’t apply 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 listing. It’s not a ought to. I belief the apply. I place confidence in the apply. And it’s not blind religion, however a religion that’s been verified by way of a long time of expertise.
How can we develop motivation to apply? Whether or not our core apply is yoga or meditation, we regularly must be reminded why we’re doing it. Listed below are some ideas for staying on the trail:
- Consider your apply as a part of your morning ritual, a method to keep the well being of your physique/thoughts. We don’t assume twice about consuming an honest breakfast, brushing our tooth, showering, and many others. Yoga and meditation practices are they methods we deliver equilibrium to our our bodies and minds.
- Whenever you put aside the time to apply, give it your full consideration. You’ve received loads of time to go over your to-do listing, or to mirror on that tough dialog you had with somebody yesterday. You’ve received time to formulate your reply to that particular person—later. Use your apply time to speculate your full consciousness into what you’re feeling in your physique and thoughts, right here and now. Your apply time is treasured. It deserves your consideration and care.
- Replicate on the worth of your apply in your each day life. In keeping with the yoga sutras, the good thing about asana apply 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 well apply to main challenges and losses. The advantages might be delicate or apparent. What advantages have you ever skilled? Reflecting on this will remind you why you apply and may also help you keep motivated.
Belief Your Yoga and Meditation Practices
Reflecting on the worth of apply in your life might be difficult. Whereas there are advantages you’ll be able to really feel straight away once you apply yoga and meditation, among the deeper advantages are delicate. That is the place reflecting on the millennia-long historical past of those practices might be useful. Yoga and meditation have survived for hundreds of years. They’ve survived as a result of hundreds of thousands of individuals have reaped their advantages. So even for those who’re simply beginning out, and the advantages you expertise are on the subtler facet, belief the method. Strategy your apply with an open, curious thoughts. Replicate on why you’re keen on your apply. Then seize your meditation cushion or your yoga mat, open your thoughts and see the place your apply takes you in the present day.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe 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 people sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.
