Yoga Girl

Moving with love instead of fear takes courage, but on the other side of it
lies liberation. Enlightenment. Joy. Happiness. Healing. Acceptance.
Surrender. Gratitude. Magic. Freedom.
A perfect place to practice letting go of fear is on the yoga mat. What
poses scare you? For many it’s arm balances, advanced poses, and inverted
poses, poses that involve your going upside down. Inversions can be
terrifying; they are a giant step into the unknown when we first start
practicing them and literally turn life as we know it upside down. But these
poses are so empowering; they create a deep sense of accomplishment and
confidence. e strength I have on the mat and the space I’ve created in
my body are the result of a lot of hard work, but mostly . . . a lot of letting
go. We hold so much emotion in the body. Practicing yoga is releasing—
that’s why it’s so difficult! Not because we move in different ways or inhale
to lift this and exhale to lower that. It’s scratching at the surface of what
you don’t want to see; it’s revealing all the fears and judgments you have
buried deep inside yourself. It’s connecting to what’s really true. And yes,
along the way we might pick up some strength and flexibility and
handstands and backbends and arm balances—all a bonus. But this is not
the purpose of our practice, the reason we keep returning to the mat every
damn day. As I move deeper and deeper into my own inversion practice, I
move deeper and deeper into self-love. As I build the strength to balance
steadily on my hands, I build the strength to face whatever the world
throws at me. As I release tension from the hips, shoulders, and
hamstrings, I release fear, frustration, sadness. Little by little I release the
need to control. As I learn to surrender on the mat, I learn to surrender to
the present moment. is is the practice. It’s accessible to you, to
everyone, right here, right now—but you have to do the work. No one is
going to do it for you. Don’t hold back.