I’ve heard many people say they started working out because they hated the way they looked, that they didn’t feel good in their own skin. Although not feeling your best should be motivation enough for you to work out, it should also not be the sole reason you start.
It's not easy to build a workout routine you love, something you know will draw you back every day and keep you going. I get asked quite often “How do you manage to workout so consistently?” and the only reasonable answer is that I’ve learnt to be sustainable with my workouts. I’ve tried several things as a kid, but nothing that has stuck to me the way Yoga has. That doesn’t mean Yoga is everyone’s cup of tea, I don’t expect it to be.
Why has Yoga stuck to me?
Its because I've learnt one very important lesson through my practice, and I am sure that without this learning, I wouldn’t be able to practice or preach Yoga.
The Lesson?
Respect.
Over the years we’ve learnt to respect our elders, our books, food, and so much more. But who teaches you to respect yourself? What does respecting yourself even mean? Here’s what I think it means, and why I believe it is so important.
Respecting yourself means recognising your space, your body, your skin and your mind. I’m someone who enjoys time to myself, every day, at least once a day, you will see me in my own corner, doing something for myself, whether that’s reading, watching Youtube or Netflix, making a coffee or enjoying the sunset.
I’ve found this an extremely important part of my daily routine, especially in college where everything else can take over your life if you let it. Without knowing what I like to do in my time off, and making sure I get those few minutes to myself, I wouldn’t be able to survive a week. Respecting these things will bring you mental stability, peace, allow you the time to reflect on your day, your emotions and your actions.
But how does one narrow down on these things? I can honestly say I’ve learnt these things about myself only through respecting my body first.
Respecting your body means understanding its limitations, and also finding the will power to push yourself just that bit further without injuring yourself. Trust me, any injury will put you more steps in the reverse direction than you would expect.
When you start any form of workout, you should always start from scratch, because what will you actually learn without first knowing the basics, right? So obviously even with my practice, I learnt from the very basic, the right breathing, the right form of movement, understanding muscles function and location.
It was many years before I could do any form of advanced asanas/poses, and I don’t regret that at all.
Respecting your mind; with knowledge of your body, it becomes easier to understand your mind and its needs. Sometimes you feel you aren’t able to push yourself in your workout even though your body is not fatigued or tired, but your mind is. Mind and body are reflections of each other, and without one the other is non-existent. When you find yourself in a situation like this, you should be able to respect that and give yourself a rest. On the other hand, if you’re feeling frustrated or lethargic, sometimes movement can help you overcome that feeling, give you the boost of energy you’ve been looking for but your coffee hasn’t provided.
There is, however, a very fine line between when you should practice feeling better mentally and when you should Stop practising to avoid any negative effects.
So how do you tell between these two conditions? By practising. By learning to understand and respect your mind and body in harmony, and how they behave, how one influences the other.
Learning these things are extremely important, and before Yoga, no other form of work out was successful enough in teaching me respect.
With respecting yourself, you will also be able to appreciate other things in life and others.
Why do I suggest Yoga? Because it gives you the exact tools to hack your mind; how to use breath and movement together to bring awareness, how to gain the same benefits from two different poses, so you will always have an alternate option to try, how an 8-year-old and a 60-year-old can do the same pose but give two different benefits.
Yoga is more versatile than you would first think!
Even If you don’t practice yoga, think about respect instead of revenge. Blaming your body for the way you feel about yourself will not give you the results you expect, learn how to respect yourself and how to learn that through your workout. I promise you will find yourself hooked to your workout routine once you think of these things as you practice!
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