Meet Sofia!! The Australian Yoga Teacher and Mother of two who took a new path in life!

Meet Sofia!!

I met Sofia through the tone it up community a few years ago and we have been friends ever since. She is one of my yoga inspirations. She sky rocketed in to her new career with such drive and love all while being a mom to two gorgeous children. It was amazing to watch. I am super excited for Sofia to be my FIRST EVER guest blogger 💖

To connect with her you can follow her Instagram under @joy_of_yoga 😃

Enjoy this post my friends! ☆

5 Ways Yoga will Change your life… for the better!

Hello there from Australia!  Thank you so much to the wonderful Elisa for inviting me to share with you all a guest blog post on my favourite topic…  Yoga!

Firstly, a little about me, I think my story is a pretty typical one these days, someone who spent a long time building up a ‘traditional’ career only to experience a shift that sent me in a new direction. For me it was the birth of my two beautiful daughters, and the realisation… that instead of wanting more from life, I in fact wanted to create LESS in life.  I wanted to cultivate a more peaceful way of living, with more JOY in everyday moments, a life lived with more love and most importantly I wanted to teach my kids about this by leading by example.  As they say; kids do as you do, not as you say.

I am now blessed with a beautiful little Yoga studio in a little town in Central Australia where I teach about 8 classes a week; a mix of Power Yoga, Slower Flow & Yin Yoga... all with a theme of Mindfulness.

And in today’s post I thought I could share with you, from my own experience some of the incredible benefits of Yoga. 

Yoga has many of commonly known benefits, and then there is so much more.  And once you begin your Yoga practice (or perhaps you are reading this waiting to be convinced… keep reading!) you will find benefits upon benefits that you probably weren’t even aware of.  So, let’s get started.

1. The physical benefits are abundant

It’s easy to start here with the simple physical health benefits of Yoga. Interestingly our brain creates ‘set lengths’ for our muscles based on our regular activities.  And as many of us live quite a sedentary life with lots of sitting and slouching we can experience pain associated with stiffness and immobility. Consistent practice of Yoga will lengthen your muscles, and improve your range of motion. 

I once heard it explained ‘Strength is only as valuable as it is useful’ and that really has stuck with me.  And in Yoga depending on what styles you practice, you can build up some incredible muscle strength – and what’s particularly great about it, its useful muscle… improving our function in everyday activities, keep our bodies safe, agile and strong.

2. Yoga fills you with energy... quite literally with prana (energy)

Yoga teaches us to breathe again! 

Breath is our life force bringing oxygen into our body giving us precious energy. This one can sound so simple, and maybe even silly if you haven’t experienced it… but this for me is probably the biggest unexpected benefit of Yoga.  

When we are babies, we KNOW how to breath, we take these big beautiful diaphragmatic breaths… picture a baby with lovely big belly pressing out and in as they breathe.  And they say from as early as the age of 10 we can forget how to breathe properly.  We move towards easier shorter / shallower breaths.  

The problem with that is that when you don’t get enough oxygen, the brain receives a ‘danger’ signal, which can create a mind / body state of anxiety… taking us into the Fight / Flight / Freeze / Please zone which hinders our ability to operate optimally.  

In Yoga classes, you are guided to utilize various styles of Pranayama (breath control) and before you know it, you find yourself breathing more fully in everyday situations.  I have had so many students come and share experiences with me of stressful experiences they have encountered, and how their body intuitively started using Yogic Breath; and they found themselves responding in a much more Peaceful way.

3. Yoga doesn't ask that you change yourself, simply that you learn to accept yourself

If nothing else, PLEASE try Yoga for this. Yoga operates on the premise that you are perfect - right now, in this moment in time. 

That you don’t need to be fixed.  

You are beautiful and whole and perfect.  

And it’s true! 

Yoga is a playground for practicing life’s skills.  It is said our Yoga practice can be a mirror of how we practice life… 

Are we striving hard, or are we embracing the reality of the now?  

Do we practice acceptance or do we practice frustration?  

Are we letting go or holding on?

In a Yoga class, we are guided to practice with core principles like Ahimsa (to do no harm), Truthfulness, Non-Judgement, Contentment, Acceptance; we practice these skills on the mat so that we can transfer them into every life. In fact, one day maybe all things become Yoga… 

Yoga does not just have to be stretching on the floor.  And in practicing these skills regularly the brain builds new pathways (this is the beauty of neuroplasticity) - the MORE we do something the EASIER and more natural it becomes!  We practice by placing ourselves in stressful situations, and breathing though them with calmness; with time this becomes your natural response.  Yoga really is magic 😊

So in this, we recognize that we are perfect as we are, and at the same time we spend time cultivating skills that help us live a more fulfilled and peaceful life.

4. Yoga teaches us balance!

The balance I am referring to here, is not the physical balancing we practice in classes (which has its own great benefits!), but rather the greater balance in all things. Balance in the way that each inhale has its exhale, that each sunrise has a sunset, each Summer a Winter.

You may have heard the terms Yin & Yang?  Our busy western lives are very ‘Yang’ with lots of motion, movement, the ‘go go go’, the strong desire to achieve, to get value for money, value for time etc.  And Yin is the balance to that, the passive, unmoving inward motion of things, calm, receptive.  And in life we need to create a balance of these things for our overall wellbeing and longevity.

However; in the Western world we are often found eating on the go, talking on the go, a place where taking ‘down time’ is taking an intense HIIT workout or lifting weights at the gym.  Where is the Yin time? 

Ask yourself, how often do you take the time to do nothing?  To sit, to observe, to experience life in this moment.  I’m guessing not often.  From the moment our head leaves our pillow in the morning, to the moment it hits the pillow at night we are usually going going going; giving giving giving; achieving and serving - all Yang.  Yin on the other hand is our time to process, to heal, to ‘fill our cups’ so that we can better serve, so that we can be better partners, friends, parents.   Taking time for our Yin activities is SO important, and yet so often undervalued. 

This has been a huge learning for me in recent years.  And I’m so grateful for the learnings of Yoga for re-teaching me how to create better balance in life, so that not only do I benefit from my Yoga practice, but so do those around me 😊  *Side note here: some styles of Yoga are VERY Yang in nature, so it’s important to also find some Yin style yoga to include in your practice 😊

 5.  Yoga helps us develop the habit of HAPPINESS!

Happiness is habit; cultivated on a daily basis. Yoga is underpinned by the core values of gratitude.  The idea that instead of always getting what we want, can we rather cultivate the ability to be happy with what we have.  And that is life changing.  

We can choose to be happy is this moment, if we simply decide to be 😊

So…. As you can tell, I could talk ALL day and ALL night about the benefits of a regular Yoga practice, and really this is just the tip of the iceberg.  So if you are still with me, thank you very much for your time and don’t hesitate to reach out if you need more information.

Yoga is about mastering our own minds, so we can live a simple and happy life.  It’s also about creating ease, health and harmony in our body so we can optimally live that simple and happy life.  Yes, this may be a very simplistic view of Yoga, and in my opinion if you are happy to along for the Stretch and Strengthening that Yoga offers, then it is a wonderful thing you are doing for yourself!  Who knows what else you might pick up while you are there?

Namaste ✨

Sofia