I remember the very first time I went to a yoga class. It was back in 2006. I was in university and was finally making time for the gym in between school and work.

I had been urged by a friend to go to yoga with her. It would be my first time. 

I was nervous. 

Would it be hard? Would people judge me? 

I knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that, but was it one of those things where they say that, but it’s actually not true?

I went anyway.

All I remember from that first class was how I felt after it. 

I came home and thought. Wow. I feel like I’m in another reality. I felt sooo relaxed, but not sleepy. I felt energized, but not excitable. I was grounded in my body and clear in my head.

Pure. Bliss.

Since then, I’ve been in an on-again-off-again relationship with yoga. 

I’ve tried (very) hot yoga, slightly hot yoga, yoga in carpeted rooms, yoga on outdoor decks and on the beach, fast yoga, slow yoga, restful yoga, meditative yoga, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Moksha, Yin and Kundalini yoga. I’ve even done the always colourful at-home yoga routines I mash together myself. 

I always come back to yoga when I need to find my centre. When I feel like I’m off on tangents. When I feel my life is moving without me, not from me. When I stop and notice my breath is shallow, my hips are locked and my hamstrings are tight. This is when I need yoga most.

I have shed tears of pain on my mat. Not the pain of any pose, but the release of everything I held in my body. I’ve shed tears of joy on my mat. The kind where you realize you are everything and everything is you. Because you feel it deep in your Soul.

Whatever class, setting or style I practice, I always know that if I can show up with all I am, and all I want to let go of, there will be that welcome outcome. 

Pure. Bliss.

Almost impossible to resist.

I wish you well in finding your own Bliss. May you become so enveloped by its sweetness that you find time for whatever gives you that delicious Bliss.

Namaste. Sat Naam.