This entry was posted on Aug 6, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
Why follow yoga? There’s a multitude of various solutions to this query. As with every longterm relationship, over time, our follow evolves; it ebbs and flows. Generally our follow feels contemporary and important; different occasions it might really feel as if we’ve hit a plateau. At occasions we might drop the follow for some time, and at others we might sit up for stepping onto the mat or sitting on our meditation cushion. It may be useful to recollect why we determined to prioritize yoga follow within the first place. Reflecting on our preliminary motivation to follow may also help us keep not solely consistency, but in addition inspiration.
3 Ideas for Creating Motivation to Follow
Once I take a look at my motivation to follow, I’ve discovered that it’s actually easy. I follow 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 follow 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 every day to-do checklist. It’s not a ought to. I belief the follow. I think about the follow. And it’s not blind religion, however a religion that’s been verified by way of many years of expertise.
How will we develop motivation to follow? Whether or not our core follow is yoga or meditation, we regularly have to be reminded why we’re doing it. Listed below are some ideas for staying on the trail:
- Consider your follow as a part of your morning ritual, a solution to keep the well being of your physique/thoughts. We don’t assume twice about consuming a good breakfast, brushing our enamel, showering, and so on. Yoga and meditation practices are they methods we carry equilibrium to our our bodies and minds.
- If you put aside the time to follow, give it your full consideration. You’ve obtained loads of time to go over your to-do checklist, or to mirror on that tough dialog you had with somebody yesterday. You’ve obtained time to formulate your reply to that particular person—later. Use your follow time to take a position your full consciousness into what you’re feeling in your physique and thoughts, right here and now. Your follow time is valuable. It deserves your consideration and care.
- Mirror on the worth of your follow in your every day life. In accordance with the yoga sutras, the good thing about asana follow is the cultivation of equanimity within the face of the ups and downs of our lives. This could apply to minute every day annoyances, or it may apply to main challenges and losses. The advantages may be delicate or apparent. What advantages have you ever skilled? Reflecting on this may remind you why you follow and may also help you keep motivated.
Belief Your Yoga and Meditation Practices
Reflecting on the worth of follow in your life may be tough. Whereas there are advantages you may really feel immediately if you follow yoga and meditation, a few of the deeper advantages are delicate. That is the place reflecting on the millennia-long historical past of those practices may be useful. Yoga and meditation have survived for hundreds of years. They’ve survived as a result of thousands and thousands of individuals have reaped their advantages. So even if you happen to’re simply beginning out, and the advantages you expertise are on the subtler aspect, belief the method. Method your follow with an open, curious thoughts. Mirror on why you like your follow. Then seize your meditation cushion or your yoga mat, open your thoughts and see the place your follow takes you right this moment.
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third e book 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 folks sextet Crimson Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.