How I Fell in Love with Slow Flow Yoga
In our fast-paced society, slowing down is a radical act. It’s bold. It’s audacious. But it’s also where change can happen. It’s where we can nourish. It’s where we learn. It’s where we create. It’s where we integrate body, mind and spirit.
Slow Flow Yoga wasn’t my first love. I used to power through my yoga — and liked it hot and intense. But a cancer diagnosis changed my life — and my yoga. Along the path to healing, I discovered the nourishing power and wisdom of going slow and slowing it down in general. Here are my four biggest takeaways:
1) My yoga purpose changed: yoga was no longer something to accomplish but something to experience — and experience fully.
2) Yoga wasn’t something I did to myself but did “with” myself – and that meant totally being there, a sort of surrendering to me on the mat.
3) Slowing down often meant the postures were more physically challenging but also, and surprisingly, psychically challenging. However, when I breathed into the pose, I could feel subtle changes, like a deepening or rippling. Sometimes it felt like blocks of buried emotions were being released.
4) Perhaps my most important learning and reason for falling in love with Slow Flow is my understanding of the beauty and wisdom that comes from slowing down. This is how we create the space for something to happen, the space to listen to body and to our inner voice and then let it radiate and guide us off the mat in alignment with our true selves.
Viktor Frankl once wrote about that there’s a stimulus and a response. In between is a space, and that’s where our power and freedom lie. Be audacious. Slow down and dwell in that space.