It’s official, all 4 weeks have been completed! This experience has been very eye-opening for me. It has kept me committed to myself which is something I didn’t realize I needed. Previously I was so caught up in college and friends and while that’s not bad, it definitely is beneficial to get some time for yourself to reset and to process your day. Speaking of college, I did the last week of this yoga journey in my dorm! That experience showed me that it actually is possible to work out in college even with a busy schedule. So, if you were like me and always made the excuse that you were just too busy with school, you’re wrong. We can do this!

Now into the yoga. For day 30 of the journey, yogawithadriene didn’t tell us what to do in the practice. It was all improvisation! You took what you learned throughout the thirty days and really took it to the mat. At first, when I found out that that is what we were doing, I was a little nervous about even figuring out what I was going to do for the forty minutes. The first couple of minutes were easy: downward dog, forward fold, halfway lift, and back down yah yah yah, but around seventeen minutes in I didn’t know what to do anymore… I really had to talk to myself and dive in deep to just let my body tell me what it needed from me. I realized my back, shoulders, and feet were sore so I tended to that. This experience of not having instructions really strips away the thoughts of “Am I doing this right?” It makes you rely on yourself which is a HUGE part of yoga; being able to tend to your needs to get you in a better state of mind and to get steps closer to loving and accepting your body and mind.

That is the biggest lesson I feel that I have learned from this. It’s not about being flexible or having abs but its the action of setting time aside for yourself and this is how you get the results you long for. If you come into the practice thinking, “I just want abs,” or “I  just want to look this way,” then you’re going to be less likely to achieve those goals. Us people aren’t very patient creatures and when we don’t see results as fast as we would like, we get discouraged. So change your mindset! Do this because you want to take the time for yourself. It’s about consistency. Be kind to yourself during the process, too! 

At the beginning of the journey, I created goals for myself to achieve by the end. I want to go over them and let you know if they were achieved or if nothing really changed.

Physically

• To be more toned
• To be more flexible
• To carry less tension throughout my day-to-day living
• Help the aches caused by my scoliosis

Mentally

• Become more aware of who I am
• Stay in touch with myself healthily
• Let my creativity set out
• To be one step closer to loving myself to the absolute fullest

Throughout the four weeks, I have felt a shift in my flexibility, state of mind, I am slightly more toned, there is an increase in strength (especially in the arms), in self-love and dedication to self, and it has brought relief to my back in times of aches and pains. Yoga was especially useful in college because of that last benefit. My back wasn’t used to carrying that amount of weight and my feet and legs were very sore from walking. Yoga really brought relief and a good stretch to those areas.

My flexibility has increased by A LOT. I can easily fold to touch my toes while keeping my stomach to the top of my thighs. It’s really nice to be more flexible. Before, I was always pretty tense and stiff. The poses realllllllllly hurt at the beginning of the journey but at the end, those poses felt nice and gave a good stretch. While yoga created more flexibility, it also gave me more strength. My arms got stronger and are slightly more toned. Not by much, but I feel the change more than I see it. Holding myself up isn’t as much of a struggle. I also gained strength in my wrists. At the beginning of practicing my wrists would really hurt after but now they feel normal again. Overall, I just feel a lot better and I am really thankful for these small benefits!

I would also say that yoga has helped me get in touch with my creative side. I gained a lot of hobbies throughout the process. Writing, reading, more creativity with how I dress, playing the piano more, blogging. I feel that yoga helped with my creativity because it taught me to let things go, to focus on myself, and to go after what truly makes me happy which directly helped me to learn how to stop caring about how others perceive me. I started dressing the way I wanted to without worrying about if I looked weird, I started writing without stopping, thinking that it wasn’t good enough. Overall, yoga has helped me arrive at who I was all along, I just needed the confidence and the time to work on myself.

This journey has impacted my life and if you did it alongside me, I hope you had an experience of your own that you will always appreciate. Thank you all for following me on this journey. I plan on continuing to post every Friday!

Love you all,

Laurel ❤

Uncategorized body life lifestyle mind self-love stress free yoga ywahome