Ray Of Light.
I’ve been doing some research for my Yoga Teacher Training today and stumbled across a youtube video of two of my greatest inspirations having a conversation together back in 1998. The conversation was between Madonna and Oprah Winfrey. Madonna practises Ashtanga yoga. A practice that I have grown to love too and her description of yoga hits the nail right on the head.
“Yoga is a metaphor for life - you have to take it really slowly, you can’t rush through and skip to the next position. You find yourself in really humiliating situations. You can’t judge yourself, you just have to breathe. You have to let go and it’s a very slow process but it is a workout for your body, your mind and your soul.”
“A workout for your body, your mind and your soul.” When was the last time you thought about your soul? Does that word make you feel uncomfortable or maybe you think about your soul every day. I know when I began yoga I was not thinking about my soul or my mind. I was very much focused on my body. How it looked and not how it felt.
I started doing yoga on a regular basis when I was around 25 weeks pregnant. I remember being quite competitive with myself, trying to hold poses for longer than I probably should while heavily pregnant. One day, I pulled my groin but continued my practice. Then when I mentioned it to my yoga teacher a few days later saying “I have a pain in my groin but I should just push through it right?” Her reply surprised me “No, you should listen to your body.” Listen to my body? As an ex-dancer, that hadn’t crossed my mind. As I trained and worked as a dancer I had always pushed through pain unless I physically couldn’t move!
And that’s what yoga does. It unlocks awareness to what lies beneath our physical form. That physical form that I obsessed over for the first 32 years of my life not only because I was a dancer but also because I was female. I have finally come to the realisation that focusing on your body alone will not make you happy. You have to look at your whole package - your body, mind and yes, your soul.
Yoga gives your body strength while releasing tension, creating a calmness, an inner stillness, a knowing that you are physically capable for whatever lies ahead.
It gives your mind space, peace, where you will slowly feel the clouds lifting and there, sitting behind them, patiently waiting will be clarity.
But most importantly it gives your soul a voice and this is where your listening skills really will be tested. You don’t hear it at first. You are too caught up in learning something new and dealing with strange positions and being asked to “tune in” “relax” or “breathe” - all the simple things that turn out to be quite tricky. But very slowly and timidly your soul will start to make its presence known.
My soul to me is my ray of light shining and focusing on the important things in life. I believe our souls want to shine a bright light on what we feel deep down we really want to be doing. That’s why you have to listen deeply. Connect with your soul and you will find your purpose. It may be being a mother, a teacher, a lawyer but get still, listen deeply then go out and fulfil your purpose.
We can no longer pretend that a big house and a fancy car is happiness. I believe happiness comes from within and it comes from our soul. So maybe it’s time we all dug a little deeper and truly discovered what we believe our soul to be. If we do, we can then begin to make a difference in this world.
Thank you Madonna and Oprah. I think you are both phenomenal and I’m now off to listen to Ray Of Light on Spotify and pretend I’m eighteen again!
Namaste.
Laura x
