4 Powerful Lessons My Yoga Study Taught Me About Life

When I went to India last year to study yoga and meditation, my idea of the yoga teacher training in Rishikesh was about love and light, inner peace, and positive energy. Unfortunately, what I experienced after I landed at Delhi International Airport certainly overridden my expectations.

Since I was used to different living conditions, 5 minutes of hot water a day and lack of heating system in winter felt quiet uncomfortable.

After a couple of days, my training began. Again, reality knocked down my expectations. At first, I thought I would be doing light yoga while meditating on the bank of the Ganges River. Instead, I was standing outside at 6 am in 40-degree weather during our pranayama class, drinking two full bottles of salt water just to puke it to cleanse my digestive system.

Since the training was intense, my muscles were always sore. I felt defeated, lonely, desperate, and on the verge of a mental breakdown.

After days of doing yoga, cleansing my body through pranayama while finding stillness in meditation, my body decided that it was time to let go off all the emotional baggage I brought with me and put stop to my slightly spoiled manners. It was time to look at what matters.

Here is what happened…

It was 8 in the morning, and we had one of our intense Vinyasa classes. That day, I found it very challenging to perform physical exercises and prayed for the class to finish. As we were wrapping up, I felt tears coming out. I managed to hold them until I made it to my room.

The moment I closed the door, I started crying. My initial plan was to push it deep down and get over it. Unfortunately, my body decided differently. I sat on my bathroom floor, surrendered, and allowed all my emotions to pour out.

And there I was, going through deep inner healing while shading off all this pain, anger, and resentment that my body refused to keep in any longer.

A few days later, I got a severe sinus infection and high fevers and ended up at the doctor’s office. Once I got better and began overcoming my materialistic mindset, my yoga study turned into one of the best experiences I have ever created. It allowed me to see the world from a very different place.

Here are four lessons my yoga teacher training taught me about life:

1. It encouraged me to become more grateful and happier

I can’t even describe the exuberating feeling of gratitude I experienced every time I took a shower. Although I had to be strategic and sometimes compromise between washing my hair and shaving, nothing was more rewarding than feeling hot water touching my skin. I knew I only got a few minutes and enjoyed every second.

It blew my mind that I felt more grateful in a place where I had less while less grateful in a place where I had more. I was never more convinced that gratitude is ONLY the state of mind. Living a life of fulfillment depends on perception, not the number of things or good moments we experience.

2. It humbled me 

Nothing in life humbled me more than my Ashtanga classes. This healing yet daring physical practice challenged my mindset and endurance level. I still loved it and wanted to cry half of the time after it was over.

Asthanga practice with our teacher Naveen Ji wasn’t the time to look pretty or sophisticated. It was the time to find every bit of energy and breath to make it through the end without collapsing. Being in such a vulnerable state challenged my physical and mental limits. It taught me what it means to (literally) bow my head down and give thanks to the most powerful tools I had – my body, my breath, and my mind.

3. It made me stronger-minded 

As I approached the second part of my training, I felt intimidated. As a beginner advancing toward an intermediate level, I questioned whether I made the right decision to complete the entire program at once.

I shared my concerns with a couple of my teachers. One of them told me: “Your other half of the program isn’t about physical endurance (that’s what I feared). It’s about mental endurance.”

Since I had nowhere to run and had to prepare for another 30 days of intense training, I pushed myself to think differently. Every day, I kept repeating that my success depended on how I approached this challenge. It was all a matter of my mindset.

Because I conditioned my mind and was aware of the limits I imposed on myself, I handled the second part of my training much better than the first. I increased my focus and mental stamina, and faced these challenges with courage instead of fear.

4. Yoga is not only about asanas

Before I boarded the plane to Delhi, I aimed to master my forward fold. While boarding the plane back to Miami, my biggest goal was to find a way to live in peace.

Although perfect yoga poses look sophisticated and give us Instagram likes, yoga philosophy gives us a better quality of life where we don’t care about likes. I came to the conclusion that the physical part of yoga represents about 30% of what this powerful practice brings to the world.

It allows us to heal, become more resilient, deepen our relationship with ourselves, and discover how powerful and capable we truly are.