When I started doing yoga, it was more for fitness than anything else. I already had a pretty good meditation ritual, and was fully immersed in the church, so the spiritual and mindfulness components of it weren't my main focus.
After a few sessions, though, that quickly changed. Over the course of the year, I've tried a few variations of yoga — particularly vinyasa, bikram, and yoga nidra. And all of them provided a life lesson that I plan to keep with me for years to come:
There’s a sequential flow for everything.
I began my yoga journey with vinyasa. I downloaded an app on my Apple TV that would allow me the space and comfort of starting this journey in my living room. Vinyasa yoga is a style that relies on the flow and sequence from one pose to the next. This means, there's a sequential order to every pose — both with breathing and with body movement. I didn't realize that at first; I felt that I could get to Pose #3 without doing Pose #2. Throughout the at-home session, I proved myself wrong. If I took a break during Pose #2, I'd have to still do Pose #2 to make transitioning into Pose #3 easier.
The fluidity of my body relied on successfully completing each pose in order.
After each session, I reflected on that reality, and connected it directly back to life. So often, we try to skip step 2 of our process to get to step 3. We try to rush through our journey, thinking that doing so will get us there quicker. In reality though, it'll only get us there unprepared. There is a sequential flow for everything in our lives and for us to make it through with our fullest, best selves, we must recognize and honor this.
I can get through anything.
Bikram yoga was the most challenging for me. Between the excessive heat and the sweaty palms, it was hard to maintain the poses. 15 minutes into this session, and I was already over it. Drenched in sweat and pushing the limits with my body, I felt defeated. But I didn't start this session to stop a quarter of the way through. I was determined to complete this session and I did all I could to do so. I took breaks when needed, did modified poses if the originals were too challenging, and solicited help from the instructor to perfect my form. I was dedicated to not only finishing, but finishing well. Not because I had to, but because I knew I could.
If we navigate our everyday lives with this same energy we could achieve everything we set out to. Once we recognize that all we need to complete something is the gall to keep at it, we're able to position ourselves in the posture of persistence, patience, and push-through that we need to make it through.
Little things matter.
When I solicited help from the instructor, he provided minor tips and adjustments that made all the difference. Though it felt I was far away from mastering the pose, his minor tweaks proved that I wasn't as far as I thought. Twisting my body a little to the right, heightening my chest, etc. helped me position myself into a pose that I previously struggled with.
Small adjustments made big changes.
I immediately thought about how to apply this to my life: What small modifications could I make in my life to provoke big, lasting change? I recognized that so many "little things" can make a big difference. Not all life-changing moments are based on big decisions. In fact, it's the culmination of smaller decisions and small blessings that usher in peace, prosperity, and life-changing possibilities. Things as simple as turning your phone off when you sleep, or being kind to a stranger can present you with peace and opportunity, respectively, that you may have never considered. As we navigate our everyday lives, let's not ignore the small changes we can make to improve our lives.
Let your mind rest.
Yoga Nidra proved to be the most relaxing form of yoga for me. Using audio a friend of mine received from a yoga retreat in Bali, her and I laid on my living room floor in full submission to this guided meditation. Yoga Nidra focuses on relaxation and inner peace, so during the entirety of this meditation, we were laying on our backs with our eyes closed. As the instructions played from the audio, I realized that much of what we were told to do was to mentally release the toxins of our day. By the end of the session, we were both asleep.
So often, we let life's trials over-consume us. We worry about today, we worry about yesterday, and we worry about tomorrow – none of which does us any good (word to Matthew 6:34). Yoga Nidra forced us onto the floor in a posture of full relaxation, and walked us through releasing those worries from our minds, and releasing the tension it causes from our bodies.
This level of mindfulness reminded me of how important it is to rest – both physically and mentally.
Many times, our ideas of rest may be just about the physical; a lazy day on the couch, binge watching Netflix, still entertaining the many thoughts on our mind; or, a day out on the beach reading a book that we hope will help us fix our lives. This yoga technique, however, promoted the full rest of the body and the mind.
It inspired us, not to just rest our physical, but to fully release everything clouding our mental as well. It encouraged us to say "hello" and "goodbye" to those things in one breath. Obsessing over things you cannot change, or thinking about what happened yesterday won't give you an 'up' in life. Sometimes we should just come to the floor (or the altar) and let things go.
Mindfulness doesn't always have to be about thinking, sometimes it can be about consciously not thinking.
Featured image by Getty Images
Related Stories
Energize Your Mornings With These 5 Simple Yoga Poses – Read More
4 Of The Biggest Misconceptions About Starting A Yoga Practice – Read More
What Self-Care Looks Like To Yogi Dr. Chelsea Jackson – Read More
- Life Lessons I Learned From Yoga | Recovery Warriors ›
- 7 Important Life Lessons to Never Forget | Isha Sadhguru ›
- Powerful Life Lessons Learned From 30 Days of Yoga ›
- Four Life Lessons We Can Learn from Yoga Practice | Student ... ›
- 5 Life Lessons From Yoga That Will Stick With You Long After You ... ›
- 7 lessons I've learned from practicing yoga – Be Yourself ›
- 5 Life Lessons You Can Learn From Yoga | Mental Benefits of Yoga ... ›
- 3 Basic Life Lessons I Learned From Yoga - mindbodygreen ›
- The unexpected life lessons of Yoga — Rosie Hope ›
RELATED
Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak