Ways To Revive A Stale Yoga Practice
Excitement and curiosity drove you to dive head strong into learning yoga asanas. You even found your favourite studio to practice and have a good network of friends. Then, one day, a strange thing happens.
Like a relationship with an old lover, you’ve lost the passion for your yoga practice and now you’re looking for ways to rekindle the fire. If this has happened, then this article is for you.
Karma Yoga
Humbling one’s ego and allowing yourself to be apart of something bigger than oneself can bring great benefits. Karma yoga is about putting yogic philosophy into action.
One of the four main paths of yoga, karma yoga is about purifying your heart by learning to act selflessly in service of others. Through karma yoga we learn kindness, compassion and how to act from pure intentions.
A beautiful flowering of the heart happens when service comes from a selfless place. Karma yoga is about sharing love and spreading light. Something our planet needs right now.
Pranayama
‘Pran’ means breath, respiration, universal energy, power or life. ‘Ayaam’ means extension or expansion. Pranayama means the extension of the breath or life span.
According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, pranayama is a preparatory practice, required prior to the more advanced techniques of pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration) and dhyana (meditation), leading to the ultimate stage of samadhi (enlightenment).
Learning to tame the mind through the practice of controlling the breath will take your yoga practice to the next level.
Yoga Teacher Training
Spend some time doing research so that you can find a teacher who is not interested in producing factory teachers but instead looking to deepen your relationship with the self.
This is very important. The goal is not about a new career but taking your knowledge to the next level. Before, perhaps you focused merely on the physical aspects of yoga. Now it’s time to dive into how one can become more mindful or release traumas like in Somatics.
You’ll be surprised at the inspiration one gains when the right teacher brings the wisdom of yogic philosophy to life for you.
Hopefully you have some new ideas of how get the fire in your practice burning again. See you on the mat.
