Lessons from a Decade of Yoga
April 2013, I was just on the edge of 19 years old and graduating from high school. At this point in my life, I had plans to go to college in New York City to become a pharmacist. I was already taking classes, full time, at a local community college for my senior year of high school because I was completely suffocated by the rigidity and boredom of high school. I had already moved away from home to live with a boyfriend in an extremely toxic relationship and was involved with partying and drugs. Luckily, I still had a dream and vision for my future, which, through the late teens and early twenties helped me to continue to focus on education, better opportunities, and healthier relationships.
Like most teenagers, just getting out of high school, I had little to no sense of my Self, my Power or my Authentic Desires. I was told, “pick something” and do it. As a perpetual people pleaser I wanted to prove that I could do anything I chose and set my mind to. I wanted to get the best grades and be seen as a good person, always. I was spending so much energy hiding my authentic self and just living a life based on my mental projections instead of my heart’s guidance.
I had no real connection to God, to spirituality or to love. I remember, very clearly, believing love cannot actually exist. I would have a literal gag sensation when I tried to say the word God from the repulsion I felt from the image of God that I learned in church growing up. Therefore, as a teenager I was without outer direction and inner direction.
Yet, God continues to work through us, even if we are unaware of his/her Divine Presence. Because we are a spark of God’s Spirit, dancing in this play of life. We are always alive and seen in the presence of God and there are moments, when we surrender to life and allow magic and wonder to come in, where God’s guidance shines through in our life.
So even though I did not feel connected to God in my teenage years, I know I was guided. Although it was lonely, I now know I was never alone. At this time in April 2013, just before graduating high school, I was divinely guided to Yoga.
I had stopped all physical sports in the Fall of my senior year of high school. I played soccer for 10 years and danced for 6 years. For the first time in my short life I was starting to feel “out of shape” and inflexible. I had heard the word yoga briefly mentioned somewhere and decided to go on youtube to see if I could find anything. I started watching 10-20 minute yoga videos and just fell in love with the asana practice!
I was cracked open. A surge of joy, hope, creativity and inspiration flooded into my life that summer. I wasn’t even practicing meditation yet, but I started feeling a “spiritual connection” to life, like I had never felt before. My soul was stirring and I was remembering who I really was. I have never stopped practicing yoga over the last 10 years. If I have gone for more than a week without practicing asana, it’s simply because I had just given birth to a baby.
This practice changed my life, entirely. Yoga was the one thing that guided me back to myself. It was the only space I had that was safe, where I could sit with my emotions and listen to my heart and soul. I have since developed a deep connection to my emotions, internal state, soul, spiritual guides and God and do not only need to practice yoga to experience this Divine connection in my life, but yoga is still a very important practice to me. Through this practice I continue to honor the temple of my body, I continue to strengthen my body and lungs, move energy and fluids through the body, support digestion and take time to myself, which is hard to come by as a mother of a 3 year old and 20 month old.
Let’s fast forward a bit, for those who don’t know me here. I DID NOT finish college in NYC to become a pharmacist. No, that chapter closed within the first semester of being in New York. I moved back home to “small town”, Massachusetts and finished school at Worcester State with a Bachelors in Biology and Minor in chemistry. I had plans to become a physical therapist, but as my love for yoga and reiki grew strong, I knew I was going to follow this path of spiritual healing.
I received my 200 hour yoga teacher certification in 2015 in Western, MA and then my 300 hour yoga teacher certification in 2018 in Peru. I started teaching yoga teacher trainings for a year in Peru and then found out I was pregnant with my first child and have sense stopped traveling and teaching yoga to the public and have shifted my focus on supporting woman in coming into alignment with their Soul-Gifts, Innate Power and Purpose for this life through Healing experiences, ceremonies and mentorships.
My understanding of yoga began to develop and expand when I met my now husband in 2017. He had a devoted meditation practice and introduced me to the teachings of Paramahansa Yoganada. We would meditate daily together and I began studying Yoganandaji’s spiritual lessons on Yoga, which taught me how to correctly meditate and therefore I unlocked my own deep connection and relationship to God. Yoga is truly about reuniting our consciousness with Divine Consciousness and Yogananda has attained Self-Realization and can truly teach the ancient methods and techniques for union with the Divine. I developed an understanding of prayer, devotion, and deep spiritual embodiment.
Through meditation and asana practice, my life has completely transformed over the last 10 years. Below are just a few lessons that come to mind that I have learned along the way…
You don’t have to “move slow” to slow down. Slowing down means to be deeply conscious and aware of the present moment. And in order to be deeply present the mind and heart needs to develop in peace, concentration and patience.
Just put your feet on the yoga mat and you will feel better. You will almost always do at least one stretch.
True meditation is the most important spiritual practice to transform our life and connect with God
Spend more time discovering who you are, from within, instead of comparing yourself to others.
Your body is working with you and for you. You can trust in its divine intelligence.
When you have absolute trust in God you do not put pressure on yourself, the world or the people around you to be perfect. Which brings so much more ease, trust and grace into your life.
You are intuitive/psychic. It is an innate human ability.
Healthy boundaries create more freedom in your life.
We are all more similar than we are different. Awaken compassion.
Kindness, love and a warm hug can be so profoundly healing
Commitment and responsibility to your purpose is also devotion to God. When you attune yourself to your soul mission for this human life, you channel, with great clarity, the experience of the Divine into your life. You are able to share this Divine presence through your Divine Service and Gifts.
My meditation and asana practice has changed throughout the years, but continues to be a pillar for my spiritual practices. I am so grateful for the community I have created through yoga and the deep spiritual connection that I have developed through meditation. Without yoga I may not have met my husband, who showed up in the backyard of my house while I was teaching a donation yoga class, many years ago!
I’ve had the opportunity to meet inspiring souls while teaching yoga teacher training’s in Peru and am so honored to have been able to travel to such a beautiful country 4 times in one year. Yoga has guided me to places and people that have truly brought so much joy and abundance into my life. I am forever grateful. I look forward to another decade of magic, wonder, discovery and deep spiritual connection.
Much love to you all,
Ashley