Kickstart 2010: Are we having fun yet?

The joy of yoga

If you started your 30 days of yoga sadhana on January 15th then you’ve been practicing for 10 days now. You are one third of the way through your sadhana.

Are you having fun yet?

Maybe that seems like a strange question. Maybe you expect yoga to be serious?

It is. At least, it is profound. My experience of yoga has been that it leads me into all of my own darkest places and then helps me find the steadiness and the ease that I need to go through each of them.

Yoga can be intense. But it has also been a source of real lightness and joy for me. I have fun when I’m in my flow.

In my yoga classes we often end up having a laugh. Sometimes it might be a release of the nervous energy that builds up when you step into those otherwise untouched places. But sometimes it simply is a spontaneous outpouring of joy.

Many of us spend much of our lives unplugged from our source of energy, joy and love. When we plug in, which yoga helps us do, it’s not unusual to feel joyful, even ecstatic.

Not all the time. There are certainly days when my practice is taking me through places where I’m still storing up fear, shame or guilt. When my practice leads me to lean into those spaces it can feel pretty heavy.

But when I keep breathing, keep connecting to the earth, keep coming back to the sensations in my body, keep returning to my sankalpa – well, eventually I find space, I find freedom and I find joy.

So how about you? Is yoga a source of joy? Are you having fun yet?

How are you going with the 30 days of yoga? Have you noticed any changes in your body, mind or spirit? Have you learned anything new about yourself? I’d love to hear from you.

*I can’t think of a better image of the joy of yoga. Not just the bliss state evident on my face but also the guy in the background, who didn’t join our class but did do his own joyful thang!