There is always a chance to begin

I never thought I would become a yoga teacher.

I was a chubby bookworm girl and never good in gymnastics. So I learned to feel.

When I was 26, I was very overweight and in terrible condition after a few years of student life and grabby living habits. Friend of mine managed to lure me to a gym close by to try aerobics.

Do you remember those glorious times, when aerobics teachers used to do their own practices and music lists and all? You learned to find the ones you loved, the practices with the suitable challenge and energy for you. Oh, I still dream of my favorites, with great full body workout in great spirit and energy to the beats of Motown…

Even though I hated it in the beginning, I knew it was my call and committed to it. Three times a week I found myself in pool of sweat in the back row. After some weeks I started to cry there. I just realized my tears pouring down my cheeks.

It wasn’t the “misery” of it.

It was so profound, deep understanding, that bloody heck, I can do this. My body can move in this way. I enjoy this, this feels great and my body is finally connected to something it has always been capable of doing and enjoying.

Those tears melted away all that shame, pain from the years of nasty words at me. The illusions of my inability to do physical things.

They were tears of sorrow for years lost. All this movement and enjoyment it brought to me, had been in me from the beginning. Just buried in prejudice and social adaptation.

That small room in that rough gym lifted me to a new life, totally. It connected me to my body and it’s movement, and thaught me the how to commit to something. How to lift yourself up from physical mud. It thought me to love my body, movement and sweat.

I wish I can carry some of the teachings from that rough gym room to my yoga classes.

You can begin at any time. With anything you have. Even if it is very little at the moment.

If you commit to yourself and you want to see what your body has to teach and to give you – sky is the limit.

You have your own sky, your own journey, your own body. And you can amaze yourself with it if you give it a change.

I never guessed I would become a yoga teacher.

I had known some years, that my former life in design was coming to an end. I had rationalized my will to become an artist to design, and it never really fit me.

Friend of mine got so much clarity from his yoga teacher training, that I thought I should try it. If it would give me some clarity about my next steps. I decided it didn’t matter if I ever thought anything. This would be just for me. I have slow kinesthetic memory, and I wasn’t sure I could ever remember enough asanas to guide them for others.

The joy of movement I found at the gym workouts eventually led me to try yoga. Over the course of more than twenty years, I managed to try all the main yoga styles in Helsinki, trying them out of curiosity. I saw different ways of teaching, and I got to experience very different approaches and methods of moving on a yoga mat. I am grateful to every instructor, each of them has given me something.

Even though I was unable to choose one central yoga style as my own, something in that practice always calls me back to it and does me good in countless ways. I wanted to find a perspective on teacher training that would feel in line with my values ​​and my understanding of humanity.

 It took time to find a training that really appealed to me. Same friend linked me finally to the Heartul Yoga teacher training. It has been one of the best things in my life I have ever done.

That beautiful old house, wonderful people and Heartful’s insightful study program worked their magic. It was wonderful and it was challenging year. Yoga is a deep practice, and it will churn unprocessed stuff up from you. It was a gentle environment to become visible in a new way.

That training gave me something I never could have expected. My creativity in its many forms had totally withdrawn during my design education. It’s probably not so rare experience in early 2000’s but it was rough ride in hands of various groups of male designers, who had very narrow and masculine view of what they wanted to see on paper and form. After those years, I did my work, but outside it, cooking was my only creative outlet. 

Yoga teacher training lured my sleeping creativity to life again. It was an education in many topics that interested me, homework with always creative possibilities, and most of all a welcoming and supporting environment to grow.

My dormant creativity has woken like a dragon to claim what is hers. On the mat and outside of it.

So – if you are stuck in life, your work life has lost it juice, or you know that your creativity has been captured by tough experiences – take a class! A training!

Take something that you are interested on but you can do it without pressure. Let yourself play and try. Look for atmosphere that you feel comfortable in.

It can work magic in your life.

Photo: Maria Putaansuu