This morning I suddenly woke up with the realization that I’ve started creating a lot of blog posts already and that I kind of forgot to explain what the yogi life actually is! Which is quite weird as the blog is called: The Yogi Life For Me. I should’ve probably started out with it, but its never to late, I guess ;)?
Yoga
Yoga has been gaining in popularity and you can almost find a yoga studio on every corner of the street and there are a lot of retreats going on all over the world. From my opinion I can see why of course, I’m a yoga teacher myself and I know from my experience what yoga does to you. I’ve never been into following any hype and jumping onto something just because its trending. I’ve started doing yoga before it got popular and I have to say that the demographic has changed a bit. I remember I started doing yoga with only women above 45. Which was alright by me, they were looking for serenity, and that was also what I was looking for. Then I saw yoga getting popular and reaching more people, suddenly there were men, and suddenly there were people in their twenties. And sometimes I could see that people just thought: “I’m just here to check out why its getting so popular.” And very often I found that they were coming back to the classes as well.
But why? Well, I think I’ve mentioned it in one of my articles before, its a holistic discipline. There’s something for everyone! You can look at yoga in just a physical way, you have some issues with your back, knees, neck, … and there are some positions to train your muscles and to get some movement back into your body. You can also look at it in a mental way, if your head is full or you just broke up with someone, there is the relaxation part. And for those who are looking for more of a spiritual connection, there’s that part too, there are a lot of books written about the philosophy behind yoga. In the end of the article I’ll show you the ones I just love if you’d be interested.
And I found that even if you are just coming for one of the components, somehow they are woven into each other anyway. So even if you say: I’d just like to get more flexible. You’ll start to see at some point that your mind is also gonna get a bit more flexible ;). For that I’d have to go deeper into the philosophy behind yoga, which is not really my intention in my article. I’d like to get you started with experiencing it for yourself and seeing where yoga is taking you on your path. So that brings me to the next point, what is the yogi life?
The Yogi Life
The yogi life is a journey, and for everyone its gonna be different and challenging. Yes, I’m saying challenging, and I’m not just talking about getting into some weird positions where it looks like you’ll be needing some snake-ish qualities to get into them. I’m talking about life changing challenges. I don’t wanna come over as a marketer for yoga, but hey, I’m a yoga teacher ;). I’ve seen people go through so many things in their life. From being stuck at their job, thinking that they actually liked their job, but in reality they hated it. And yoga helped them to see what changes they needed to make to become happy and energetic again. This is a very strong example, but its just to make clear that this is what yoga can do to you. This just used to be one of my students who had a burn-out and decided to quit and start something else all over again! What a guts she had. Another example is one of my own. I always used to have knee pains when I would walk a lot, because I’m hyper flexible I wasn’t walking in a good way, my knee was always over-bending when I was talking a step. Which then again resulted in inflamed ligaments. After a few years of doing yoga I went to my teacher and told him that. He gave me some exercises to do, and since then I never had any issue anymore with my knees. Now I walk in the hills of Portugal for hours without having any knee-problems.
So as you can see, and you’ve probably read even more stories on the internet of how yoga has changed people, the yogi life isn’t just one path. Everyone has its own story and everyone has his own path to walk one. Therefore its also not really possible to really put a stamp on the yogi life. Thank god for that! The only thing I can say that everyone has in common is that it all ends into the same goal, a more peaceful, relaxed and serene life. Because of this you are tuning in with yourself more and more, and you start feeling what decisions are good for you and those who are not. And that goes from eating a particular kind of food, to life changing choices you are preparing to take.
Book recommendations
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – Sri Swami Satchidananda
I’m already starting off with some very deep-going literature, but this book is just my all-time favorite! I love the yoga sutras and it has basically been my bible in the time that I was looking for a deeper meaning of what yoga actually is. In this book every sutra gets an explanation of what the words actually mean. It’s explaining what yoga is for and there are given even some good and funny examples to illustrate what they’re talking about. I wouldn’t recommend it to the beginning yogi, but if you are advanced and like to do some digger deeping, this might be something for you.
The Buddha walks into a bar – Lodro Rinzler
This was an amazing book to read if you are quite worried about all the restriction that you’re going to read. As in a lot of books you’ll find that you’ll have to be pure and sustain yourself from alcohol, meat, sex, … This book wipes out all of those restrictions. Well, it gives a deeper explanation about why you shouldn’t drink, but it doesn’t say that you couldn’t. I laughed so hard just reading the first page. It’s a nice book if you’re starting with yoga, it doesn’t say anything about yoga, but it gives a good view on meditation and basically that’s also a part of yoga.
The Tree of Yoga – B.K.S. Iyengar
This book I liked very much as well. It expands about the 8-folded path of yoga. No worries if you don’t know what it is yet, you’ll find out about it in your classes ;). It gives a deeper explanation about the goal of yoga and how to reach it. It can be a bit hard to read sometimes, but they’ve given some nice explanations to illustrate the whole story a bit better.
Conclusion
So that was it for now again. The pictures I’ve added are some picture of the teacher training I attended in India, hoping it will get you inspired ;). If you have any questions or if you’d like to share your own story, feel free to leave a message down below in the comment section!
Nama-stay wonderful everyone!
I agree that yoga is becoming increasingly popular because it brings you into a relaxation state that is different from the rest of your day. I use to practice yoga every day. The main thing that yoga does is make you focus on external exercise so that you are not in your head and more relaxed.
Thanks Jon, that’s well said! Although it’s more than keeping you out of your head through physical exercises, but I might explain more about it in another article :).
Great question! This is helpful to me as I have only heard a little about this topic, so I found your explanation of the yogi life very insightful. You’re right, it’s never too late, whether we’re talking about the yogi life or anything else for that matter, so great message here. It’s really great that you are a yoga teacher and are providing your knowledge to the world through a post like this, again very helpful. I do think of this as a holistic discipline, with both physical and mental benefits. Thank you for the insightful information, I look forward to reading more of your yogi posts!
Thank you very much for your comment! It’s nice to hear from others that they are benefiting from my posts, and this keeps my spirit high to continue spreading my own experience with yoga. All the best and always feel free to reach out if you have a question!
Hi Virendra, I must say that this article is very helpful and informative. Yogi life is getting really popular today across the globe and it really has a great impact on the human organism. My wife practice yoga regularly and she feels so refreshing and with a better mood. I want to ask you can yoga really help with weight loss or not? I heard so many things about its relation with weight loss but I am not sure.
Hi Daniel, thank you for your reaction. Considering losing weight with your yoga practice. It’s a bit double. I’ve written an article on my website as well: Yoga For Weight Loss. But to give you a bit the short version of it. It depends on your intention, why are you doing yoga? If you are solely doing it to lose a couple of pounds, I’d say no. If you are in it for the holistic approach, I’d say yes. And of course, then you have to do a vigorous form of yoga as well where you’ll train the body. Hope that answers your question, and if not, you can always contact me!
Hey. Wonderful post. Really enjoyed it. I was practising Yoga as of recently, and that is how I came to your article. I will definitely have a glance at the books you recommended. In my opinion, I do not think it is necessary to cut out alcohol and sex. This part of Yogi life I don’t like. However, searching for inner peace is something I look forward to when practising Yoga.
Strahinja
Hi Strahinja, thank you for your comment. And yeah, I also don’t like the abstinence part of yoga, although I have to say that when you’re doing yoga with a hangover, not that nice, when you’re breaking a sweat, you will smell the alcohol coming out of your pores, which isn’t that nice for you, nor for others. But I feel that’s something that everyone has to experience for themselves ;). I wish you all the best on your yoga journey!
I love the practice of Yoga. I have just found out recently that there are many types of yoga that you can practice that suits your preference. I find that the yoga that is a little more upbeat is for me. However, I find hot yoga to be too much and I cannot breath, the room stinks!. I love the end of each yoga session that we get to close or eyes a bit and relax. It is almost like a meditation that I am looking for (for me), all my worries and stress just go away. I can also see the improvement of my knee pain and back pain from practicing yoga too. I feel strong but all the movement has less impact for my joint and back, that is a blessing. I am a buddhist from Thailand, I would love to find out about the book that you recommended and see if it is similar to my belief or not. However, I have never practice yoga with the real yogi from India. I heard from my good friend who went to India for this yoga retreat. She said that it was the best decision she ever made, she has changed a lot of perspective in her life and she highly recommend it. We will see if I am brave enough to go to India lol Thanks for the post, it is very inspiring.
Hi Nuttanee, I’m glad you are experiencing all of this in your own practice. It’s good to hear from others that yoga does have a good effect on them. Considering going to India, I’ve done my teacher training there, and it was amazing! It was also challenging I have to say, doing yoga from 6 in the morning til 8 in the evening. But it’s amazing to completely immerse yourself into something as well if you’d like to go any deeper. All the best to you!