Rediscovering Your Inner Child

I could go on for days about all the reasons why I love yoga, but this one holds a very dear place in my heart. My father always says, “Growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional”. While very true, once we graduate from school and enter the work world, it seems we forgot about our childlike curiosity. Remember when you were little and you would spend forever figuring out how something worked or constantly changing the rules in your games? I somehow always got thrown into Derek City’s jail (aka a cabinet in our neighbor’s garage) because my older brother was always changing the rules. I could have sworn it was ok to drive the Barbie corvette on the left side of the street! Anyways, as children, we aren’t set in our ways; our habits haven’t been carved into stone. And for some reason, as we get older, we feel like we have to do things a certain way, because we’ve always done it that way.

Yoga forces you to be dynamic. Maybe “gently encourages” is a better term, but either way, you can’t approach each practice with the same attitude and expect similar results. Every muscle, joint, organ, and cell in our body is interconnected and reacts differently to certain stresses throughout the day. I know, for example, after three cups of espresso, my balance is worse than a drunken sailor on a ship during a storm. Warrior III is never the same day-to-day or even throughout a single class. And though some may find it frustrating that they can’t be perfect all of the time, I love that yoga makes me stay focused to the subtleties of the posture. And this brings us back to the childlike curiosity. Where else do you get the opportunity to take your shoes off and sit on the floor? And then approach each posture like it’s the first time you’ve ever done it? Change and adaptation is accepted and encouraged in a class.

Embrace the practice of dynamic possibility. Besides, nothing is more fun than falling and getting back up. And who knows? Maybe you’ll need that lesson in your work life someday…