What is Yoga?
What is Yoga? Yoga is a science-backed practice for relieving stress, calming the mind, and strengthening and opening the body. 
Who can benefit from Yoga... Anyone with any of the following: back pain, headaches, digestive issues, or insomnia... Everyone who ever felt overwhelmed or anxious... Individuals who understand life will be more comfortable with a few, simple tools to help them feel calmer, sleep better, and relieve physical pains?
Yoga may be for you for any number of reasons. The overwhelming reason I share the gift of yoga, so others may find healing, inner peace and confidence by connecting mind, body and spirit. We can exhale the past and inhale the present. We can #overcometrauma. We can #HealForward. I have learned how trauma impacts our minds, bodies and brains.
"A mind that is stretched by new experience, can never go back to its old dimensions." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I have no desire to go back to old ways of thinking or living.
Bernie Clark, author of The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, states: "Our goal in life is not to become perfect. Our goal is to become whole." I couldn't agree more. My childhood was dominated by the expectation to be perfect, and always feeling inadequate because I was unable to be perfect. The decades of stress from trying to be the perfect child, the perfect wife, the perfect parent.... and on and on... was physically, mentally and emotionally crippling. Now, I learn, I do my best, I breathe, I learn to let go, and I focus on being whole.
Understanding how unresolved trauma can manifest in a variety of ways, and the symptoms often show up years later with devastating impact, has guided me toward the benefits of yoga for trauma survivors. In coming blog entries we will delve into what trauma is, how it impacts us individually and as a society, and how we can utilize the gift of yoga to #healforward and reclaim our minds, bodies and lives.
I hope you are ready to stretch your preconceived ideas and move forward, to become whole. You are worth it. You are priceless!
