How I got into yoga and why I never looked back

I’m sure we all had unique introductions to yoga and I bet it’s safe to say we’ll never forget them. If you’ve never done yoga and are looking for your own introduction, please do your mind, body and soul a favor and let this be it. You won’t regret it! 🙂

I was 19 years old when I first embarked on this amazing journey. At the time, I was living a more average than not teenage lifestyle. It was summer time and my brother had just gotten home after a year of studying and playing college hockey. We were hanging out in the living room after going for a run, or shooting hoops, or working out (I forgot which one it was) when he told me he was going to do yoga. It seems crazy today but I was a bit surprised when he told me and I almost made fun of him. He then asked me if I had ever tried it, which I most definitely had not. In my mind, I always thought yoga was for girls and never bothered to try it or even do any research on it.

With my brother having a role model influence on me, I was instantly very intrigued to try it. I let him do his sequence peaking my head in periodically to see what was going on. After he finished, he told me that he had taken yoga as one of his electives in college and that he loved it. That’s when I decided to try it myself. I opened my laptop, went on YouTube and typed in “yoga” and that’s when I was first introduced to Yoga With Adriene. She is Amazing and is now one of my biggest role models! I decided to do the same 30-minute video that my brother did. I completely let go and let myself be taken away.

One thing that clearly stands out in my memory was at the end of the video and lying there in shavasana. NAMASTE! It was the biggest natural high that I had ever felt. I felt more calm, peaceful, euphoric and uplifted than I ever have. I was hooked. Fast-forward four years and many yoga camps, I still am!

In my life, being fully committed to personal and spiritual growth, includes being an avid reader in the books surrounding the topic. The more I read about successful and enlightened people and living a more happy, stress free and passionate life, the more I seem to come to the conclusion that SURRENDER is a key component in these peoples live’s. How do we surrender? Well, yoga in its true essence is a great place to start. According to Yogapedia.com, the definition of surrender can be described as the practice within yoga of letting go of struggle and control. It is linked to the concept of trust. Surrender, as a practice, is referred to by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras as the niyama of ishvara pranidhana, which means “to surrender to God [or higher consciousness].” It is said that this is a crucial step on the path to samadhi, which is the ultimate goal of yoga.

One of the key aspects of the very popular Law of Attraction could be summarized by the art getting out of our own way, in other words, surrendering and trusting. When we get out of our own way, we start to ALLOW. We start to allow people and situations into our life that align with our true goals and visions. We start to allow in more love, peace, joy and a positive energy that radiates our true being. You could also refer surrender to being completely open, detached and non resisting. Ask yourself, “do I want my goals bad enough to not only be FULLY COMMITTED(which according to the ATHA Sutra, is absolutely necessary) but also bad enough to surrender and to take the necessary steps to get out of my own way?”

I like to think that a good YOGA practice along with meditation, helps us develop a good SURRENDER practice, and surrendering helps attract to us what we want but at the same being completely detached of what does come and trusting everything to be in divine and perfect order.

Today, I have developed a very happy and rewarding discipline for yoga and it is the main staple in my daily routine, which I will share with you in another blog post. If I need a little pick me up in the morning or a relaxing wind down before bed, yoga is my GO TO!

All my life I’ve been involved in sports and lived an active lifestyle. Today I consider yoga to be the centerpiece of everything I do. I am happy to call myself a yogi and it is one of my main inspirations to starting CBD YOGA & FITNESS in the first place.

Peace & Love,

Mike