Is Awareness the Key to Lasting Health and Happiness?

I love practicing yoga and have experienced many of its benefits since my first class including strength, flexibility, and greater self-acceptance. I loved it so much that I got my teaching certificate. But I kept coming across articles about yoga that insisted that once you start practicing, you will start making better food and life choices. You will naturally begin to lose weight, feel radiant all the time, manage your stress, and your skin will start to glow because of that new self-care routine you have developed, all because you began practicing yoga.

So why, after years of practicing and teaching yoga was I still eating Cheetos for breakfast? I found that I had even gained a few pounds, still loved delicious processed food, and I was completely overwhelmed all the time. What was I missing?! I kept wondering what was wrong with me. Why am I not a radiant, glowing, healthy yogi? I mean, I knew what I should eat, that I should exercise, and get lots of sleep to feel healthier; I just had no desire to actually put that into practice.

And then I started taking a course in Ayurveda. Ayurveda is considered yoga’s sister science and is a system of health and well being that seeks to bring balance to the body, mind, and emotions through healthy eating and daily habits and rhythms based on those found in nature. Ayurveda teaches us to consider how we are feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally and to become aware of what might have caused the feeling and how to balance out those feelings. For example, if my tummy hurts every time I eat a big bag of Cheetos, I should stop eating Cheetos. This might sound totally obvious, but this was a turning point for me. When I really started to consider the effects on my body of eating unhealthy processed food, drinking too many glasses of wine before bed, staying up late at night, skipping my morning run, etc., I was astounded. All of these poor choices were making me feel terrible! Finally, I got it! Bringing awareness to how my choices affected how I was feeling, made it really hard to keep making unhealthy decisions.

Don’t get me wrong, yoga teaches awareness as well and you hear teachers all the time talk about taking your yoga off of your mat. But while I had become very aware of how my yoga practice affected my body on the mat, I had not learned to take that practice of awareness off my mat and into my daily life. I have since brought this practice of awareness to all facets of my life. I notice when I feel grumpy, sad, anxious, stressed, heavy, achy, or otherwise rotten and I consider what caused those feelings and what I can do in the future to avoid feeling that way or to manage it. Similarly, I notice what causes me to feel happy, content, calm, light, or strong and I keeping doing those things. It is pretty simple but it has resulted in profound changes to how I live my life. I now know how it feels to easily maintain a healthy weight, to manage my stress, and to basically feel amazing every day! Maybe awareness really is the key to lasting health and happiness.