The Secret to Making Yoga a Habit by Kayla Paradis
This week my friend Kayla Paradis shares her top three secrets in making yoga a part of your daily routine. Kayla is a yoga teacher, blogger, conscious mama and very gifted intuitive card reader. So grateful that she was willing to share her beautiful teachings and insight with us. Enjoy!
The Secret to Making Yoga a Habit by Kayla Paradis
Yoga is defined as the union between the body, mind and spirit. Though we all know that yoga is beneficial for our health, many of us struggle in to making it a part of our daily routine. Sometimes, the desire to practice is there, but we just don’t know where to begin.
In this blog post, I am going to take you through the biggest game changers in the perception of yoga practice, that will allow you to easily integrate yoga into your daily life.
Game changer #1: Take out the hype!
It can be overwhelming to begin any exercise program, especially when we are bombarded by the media that makes us feel we should be doing things a certain way or that we aren’t doing it right. The beauty about yoga, is that it can be done in any way that feels right to you on any given day.
So many people ask me how often I practice, but I have never been strict with my personal practice. I make a point to do yoga everyday, but there are days that I practice for ten minutes, and days that I practice for two hours. I have three kids and I need to have a flexible practice. When things are too rigid and structured, it makes us feel bored and stuck over time. Don’t let this happen to you in your yoga practice!
It doesn’t have to be a big fancy thing. You don’t have to put on your sports bra or your spandex, you can practice your yoga on the floor while the kids are running around you. So, do yourself a favor and take out the hype of yoga and don’t put yourself on some rigid schedule. Just make a gentle promise to yourself to practice yoga each day. Sometimes you may miss a day, let that be okay. Sometimes you might only feel like laying in savasana or child’s pose, let all expectations go. Flow with your emotions and it will be easy to make practicing yoga a part of who you are.
Game changer #2: Get comfortable with listening to yourself
It’s no joke how fast paced and hectic our lives have become. It has become a survival instinct to go numb and become completely out of tune with our body and spirit. We numb ourselves in many ways, we lose ourselves to the point where a lot of us don’t even remember how to listen anymore.
After my birth experience with my third child (I had to have a c-section because she was breech), I was in survival mode to adapt to the stress of having another baby, the pain and recovery was intense, and like many women I had to take pain killers and push through. There are no breaks in motherhood. I realized in time though, what was happening with my pent-up emotions and pain and frustrations that I wasn’t listening to.
It was through yoga that I became very comfortable with listening to my body. I had been practicing mindfulness for years, but I was totally out of tune with my body. Day after day I ignored my body or forced it into strict regimens and routines. Finally, enough was enough and I rolled out my mat and never looked back.
This may seem cheesy, but I remember the first time I cried on my yoga mat. Such a huge emotional release. Now I say, “If you’ve never cried on your yoga mat, you’re not doing it right.”
Game changer #3: Keep track of your progress
This part, many people might be uncomfortable with and I get it. I remember when I first started taking and posting yoga pictures of myself, I felt so insecure and I even kept my account secret for the longest time! But it wasn’t until I realized how important it is to witness these changes and improvements in your practice. So many of us women become out of rhythm and out of love with our bodies. A lot of us avoid looking at our naked reflection in the mirror because we are bogged down by years of negative self talk that has been conditioned on to us.
When you start watching your body move, and you physically see the improvements in your postures and asanas, it can be so powerful and liberating! You don’t have to post pictures of yourself on Instagram like I do either! You can keep these photos privately on your phone or even if you would rather write it down in some kind of yoga journal, either way I promise it will change the way you look at yourself! After all, self image is huge in self realization.
These are my top three secrets in changing your perspective on making yoga a part of your daily routine! Make yoga not only about being physically flexible, but flexible with yourself and your expectations of yourself!
Namaste Yogis!
Visit Kaylas Website:
Follow her on instagram:
https://instagram.com/paradispractice?igshid=1tkkyk0x7l67n
Join her beautiful community of conscious mama’s on facebook:
Keeper of Keys Collective
I love these tips. I love yoga but do find it hard to practise, so taking the pressure off and even doing 10 minutes (in my normal clothes) is surely something I can do. Thank you for the encouragement.
I think starting small and slowly building upon that is such a great place to start!
Yes I seem to do it in jumps and starts. I’ll go for 30 days (as a challenge) and really feel the benefits, but then do nothing… So I’m going to take your advice and do 10 minutes or so Every Day. Thanks again 🥰
That’s amazing! I think it’s such a great way to start building that habit!