By Samara Holliday

Lately I’ve been coming to my mat for some deeply healing joo joo. I go to one class per week and the rest of the days I just want to move the way I want to move and listen to the wisdom of my body. I’ve found external comforts sneaking up on me and I’ve been seeking answers, acceptance, strength and love outside of me. My practice has been serving as the most beautiful reminder that what I seek is already within me. Some days this is hard for me to grasp. I have found the more I try to force my way in and figure it all out with the mind, the more lost I have felt.

Yoga is a beautiful surrender. A letting go of the mind and coming back to breath and the feel of the body. To really embody every cell in our bodies and feel complete and whole again.

The days I have been looking for strength outside of me, my practice seems to intuitively flow from pose to pose that makes me feel powerful and strong again, like warriors or core work. When I hear harsh words towards myself I know I need more love. I open my heart through backbends and come back inwards with forward folds. Sometimes when my mind is super busy I just surrender in childs pose and imagine all my thoughts sinking away from my forehead (third eye) on the mat and into the ground. And the funnest one is when I feel I am taking life way too seriously. I challenge myself with balances or inversions and I am always quickly humbled as I wobble and fumble my way through my practice. I set the intention to laugh at those times and come back to Lila (Divine play). By the end of my practice I lie on my mat in a floating lightness once the heaviness has been smiled away.

When we come to the mat with an awareness of what we feel we are lacking or needing more of in our lives, we can set the intention for our practice to open up that space within, the gateway to that deep well of stillness where all that we are seeking lies.

It’s from that letting go of the mind through watching my breath and feeling into my body that I surrender and come back to knowing and truly feeling that I already have everything within me.

Next time you come to the mat, ask yourself what you need more of. Look back on your day and notice where you maybe spiraled into negativity or fell into a space of scarcity and began to look outside of you. Set your intention and use your struggles as the blessing they are to guide you back to your power within, your love and deep peace within, coming back to that knowing that you already have all that you need. When we know this, we step back into our power, we stop playing small, we stop giving our power away and we come back to this expansiveness of wisdom within us.