The COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of uncertainties for me. During the circuit breaker (lockdown) in Singapore, I felt anxious, sometimes sad and angry.
By Shruti Sharma
Reader Contribution
Once my daughter began pre-school, I started going to a gym nearby after dropping her off to half-day school. That gym also offered complimentary yoga sessions and I decided to try them out on the days I wasn’t exercising. I began attending beginner yoga lessons on different days to see which instructor, pace and style of yoga would suit me the most. I found myself to be most comfortable with flow (Vinyasa) and Yin yoga but again as luck would have it, both the instructors I gelled with left the gym and my dream of learning yoga was crushed yet again.
About a year and a half later, my neighbor organized a group yoga class and invited all those who were interested. So I joined this yoga group of four people and loved the way my mind went quiet after the first yoga session. Thus, began my much-awaited yoga journey.
I continued to attend this weekend yoga group lesson and felt more and more connected with my body and mind. The increased mindfulness resulted in a small positive side-effect in the body, namely a tummy-tuck. I noticed how my mind de-cluttered at the end of each session.
During the week between the class, I’d experience a mental detox in the form of tiredness and old patterns emerging and fading away. I also noticed that if I did not feel up to the mark before the class, I’d come back to even keel at the end of the session and regain balance. I began to look forward to the weekend yoga and committed myself to sincere practice.
After about four months of settling into this routine I thought of exploring other forms of yoga and joined an Iyengar Yoga class in addition to the weekend yoga. I found the Iyengar method to be slower in pace and more focused on body alignment than the dynamic yoga I had been practicing. The best thing was I got comfortable doing inversions with the help of props in a careful and cautious environment.
Now my joy had doubled. I was thrilled to observe my own progress as a yoga practitioner over the next few months. Another interesting thing that happened was that I began lifting weights more easily at the gym and my posture improved. My skin was more radiant and hair became more silky, shiny, thick and strong. My digestion got better and metabolism improved. A well-toned body was also the result. I experienced freedom, joy and increased self-love through my yoga practice!
I feel deep gratitude for all the good things that came to me as a result of my consistent yoga regimen – some expected and a few unexpected ones. I hope this to be a lifelong journey to become a better version of myself and a way of life leading to increased self-discovery.
To contribute to our Reader’s Dairy, you can email us at admin@yogahoodonline.com.
