Letting go

After months of practicing yoga, and loving it, I started to realize that yoga is not about the asanas or poses that you see in yoga magazines or on dvd's.  Yoga is really about letting go.  Letting go of your expectations, your competition with yourself and others, and letting go of all of the mental and emotional clutter that holds us down every day!

I went to a weekend long yoga revolution at my favourite yoga studio in the summer and had kind of an awakening!  I realized I was holding on to a lot of junk mentally and emotionally that I needed to let go of.

One of the things I did after that weekend was write a letter to my father.  I have not had any type of relationship with him bascially since I was a small child.  I had always said that I was fine with it and it was his loss not mine.  But after that weekend I realized that even though I was fine, I needed to release all of the clutter that I was holding on to.  So I wrote a letter that told him how I felt and that I was ok, and not mad and that I didn't want our lives to pass without at least trying to communicate with each other.  I felt a huge weight lifted when I finished that letter, a weight I didn't even know I was carrying around.

I wrote that letter in August, I folded it up and put it in an envelope and addressed it and then I left it in my gym bag.  I left it in my gym bag for a long time...4 months in fact.  Finally, I placed a stamp on it and dropped it in the mailbox.  I didn't hesitate at all when I dropped in the mailbox, I just did it.  And I felt amazing afterwards.  I had let go of my expectations of myself and of my father.  I had let go of years of clutter.  I had let go of anger and resentment that I didn't even know I was holding on to.  I felt free!  It was amazing!
I sent that letter in November and have had no response yet, but that is not why I sent the letter.  I sent the letter to let go of MY stuff.  I don't need any response from my father.  I just needed to let go.

That is what yoga is to me.  It is a physical, emotional and mental release.  You learn to let go physically and go deeper into the poses and let go mentally get deeper into the things that hold you back emotionally and mentally.  Once you let go and just be in the moment, amazing things can happen!