bringing community back to yoga

By: Amanda Brown
Edited date: August 19, 2021Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

yoga community practice spirituality

More and more often I have been catching myself practicing the art of multi-tasking. I see it all around me at work, in the car, at the gym or on the trail and inside the yoga space.

This is a friendly reminder of why we are doing yoga in the first place, in the hopes that you let go of some of the noise and experience the silence, compassion, and peace that this practice has for you.

As yoga practitioners, we are aware that the word ‘Yoga’ derives from the root yuj, meaning to yoke, harness in, unify.

We move our bodies in specific manners with the breath to remind us that we are here in union: our body, mind and spirit.

This practice can be considered a discipline because as sincere practitioners, we come to our mat to heal and as a way to say ‘I love you’ to our selves and all the pieces we may consider imperfect or flawed.

Why else do we come to our mat?

• We come to our mat to remind ourselves how perfectly imperfect we are and that is exactly how we are meant to be.

• We come to our mat to connect us to the natural world from which we came and will one day return.

• We come to our mat and into meditation to thank the mind for its input but also we let it listen to the teachings of the ancestral breath, in order for us to really feel the ever-radiant silence within us.

As a dry wood student, my life was on fire immediately.The transformation came quickly; leaving behind jobs, relationships and places that no longer supported this new light and way of living I had found.

Over the past two years, I have chosen to step out of public yoga spaces devote myself to a home practice. But. truthfully I feel lost in this new city, no longer did I have access to my teachers. Separated from a studio I considered more a home then my physical place of residence. And those sweet (even sour) faces I would see at classes disappeared from my existence.

I was heartbroken in the pursuit of love.

Next thing I knew I was standing in front of a group of people being asked to lead not even knowing how I had gotten there. I am felt a call to find a community again, and I am feeling like it has become a show and not a practice.

We cannot practice from a seat of authenticity if we are checking our ‘feeds’ up until the teacher walks in the room. Many can’t absorb in the teachings because we brought our daily, scattered lives onto the mat and it has taken us over.

I feel many of us are consumed by our ‘machines’. We have lost physical contact with the natural world and people that surround us.

To begin thinking about healing our world we need to look more seriously at our relationships with ourselves and others.

It’s time to bring back this place of refuge of our individual sanity, and our collective peace.

This is a plea to humankind and all my fellow practitioners:

• Look others in the eye, maybe even greet them with a smile or an acknowledging nod.

• Make space even if it gives you an ounce of discomfort being so close to someone, offer a helping hand.

• Let someone borrow your prop if they need it.

• Hold the door open for another.

• Most importantly turn off your phone and choose to honor yourself amongst your fellow brothers and sisters.

United together we can bring the community back to the yoga studio and gain a genuine sense of what yoga was, is and will continue to be. Unifying.

Do you want to read more about the yoga community? Click here: who is the yoga community?