Top 10 Ways Yoga Helps You Love Yourself

1)    Yoga reveals layers or sheaths of human awareness called Koshas. This revealing allows you to peel away each layer like an onion to get to the core of your true nature. This shift in perspective can bring the focus to the inner strength you already have, and take the focus away from your external “flaws.” You can deepen your practice by striving to understand each layer and how it affects your body, mind, and spirit.

2)    If you have ever taken a public yoga class, you have seen the beautiful variety of body types that show up to practice. Fat, thin, tall, skinny, dark, light, it doesn’t matter. Yoga is a safe space to see the beauty of the human form expressing itself in all different kinds of ways. Enjoy your unique form and learn to love your differences, life would be so boring if we were all the same!

3)    When you breathe and close your eyes, you can let go of the external world around you, even just for a moment. You experience the joy of how your body FEELS instead of just worrying about how it LOOKS. Yoga allows you to move past the physical and dive deep into yourself.

4)    Body Positive Yogi’s are giving inspiration to people all over the planet. Check out these amazing yogis on Instagram: @mynameisjessamyn, @biggalyoga, and for just a few yogi’s breaking down the stereotype that yoga is only for a certain type of body. The beauty of yoga is that it is for everybody and everybody’s body!

5)    Yoga is ultimately a healing practice. Whether you like it or not, yoga will connect you back to yourself and find the things that you have hidden or shoved down deep inside. You will learn how to process these emotions in a healthy way, and understand your body and how best to take care of it. Yoga can leave you feeling amazed at all the things you CAN and ALREADY do for yourself, and that can reinforce your commitment to a life of self-love.

6)    There is a lot of failure in yoga. You fall, you miss the cue and do the wrong movement, you sometimes forget to breathe, etc. Regular failure teaches you to learn and grow from your mistakes instead of feeling bad about them. Don’t sweat the small stuff, do your best and forget the rest.

7)    Yoga teaches us a lot about our toxic behavior. What thoughts do you have in your head when you practice? Can you spend a whole hour complementing and admiring yourself and your body for the hard work it is doing and let go of judgmental negative self-talk?

8)    Savasana: the ultimate self-love guru. Give your inner critic a rest and just let yourself exist without having to DO or to BE anything at all.

9)    When you look super fly in your yoga outfit and catch a glimpse of your fine self in the mirror during your practice, think, “Damn, is that me crushing warrior 2? YES, IT SURE AS HECK IS!”

10)     Yoga teaches you to let go of the past and the future and focus on the now. You can’t change how things were, and you certainly can’t predict the future. What is left is the present moment, a gift that you give to yourself every day. Yoga teaches us to make every moment count, and love yourself for who you are right now, in this very moment.