Yoga

When you hold poses for a while, you have time to get where you want to be…This is how I feel about life now. If you are slow and mindful, you tend to be more focused on your goals and intentions

Para Yoga founder and scholar Rod Stryker says that to truly understand why yoga is so transformative, you first have to understand the concept of transformation. The idea that yoga changes you into someone better than the person you were before is something of a misconception, Stryker says. It is more accurate to say that yoga helps you remove the obstacles that obscure who you really are, that it helps you come into a fuller expression of your true nature. "We're not transforming into something we aspire to," he says. "We're transforming into the very thing that we are innately: our best Self."

The Power of Presence

"If I thought too much about what had happened, I would get sad and angry, and I couldn't forgive the mistakes that had been made. If I thought too much about the future, that was too overwhelming. But if I stayed right in the present moment, I could handle things with grace and with ease."

In 2003, Julie Peoples-Clark, a 29-year-old Ashtanga and Bikram yoga practitioner living in Baltimore, was in her ninth month of a healthy pregnancy in which she practiced yoga every day, ate well, and took good care of herself. When she went into labor, she went to the birthing center where she had intended to have a natural birth, but nothing went as planned. As a result of a difficult labor and mistakes made by the birthing center, her daughter, Ella, was born with spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy. Doctors said she would never be able to walk, talk, or even sit up on her own. After Ella's birth, Julie abandoned her yoga practiceand spent the next two years wrestling with anger and depression. But through reconnecting with and deepening her yoga practice, Julie learned to let go of what might have been and to see the beauty of what was actually before her.

When Ella was nearly two, Julie took her to a program called Yoga for the Special Child in Encinitas, California, which she had seen advertised just days after Ella's birth and finally felt ready to explore. Founder Sonia Sumar offered some Yoga practices for Ella, and introduced Julie to Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutra. At Sumar's encouragement, Julie began to spend 15 minutes a day on her mat, combining a gentle asana practice with reading the Yoga Sutra and meditating. These small blocks of time shifted Julie's experience of her circumstances profoundly. "Just being on my mat, in my sacred space, and focusing on my breath put me in the present moment. If I thought too much about what had happened, I would get sad and angry, and I couldn't forgive the mistakes that had been made. If I thought too much about the future, that was too overwhelming. But if I stayed right in the present moment, I could handle things with grace and with ease." The more Julie took this time for herself, the more present she became in all aspects of her life, including in her interactions with her daughter. She started to see Ella as a gift and a treasure. "I feel like I missed two years of my daughter's life when she was a baby," Julie says. "I was so goal oriented, and I wanted her to be well. But sitting down on the yoga mat with her made me realize how rich my experience was. I have a beautiful daughter who is achieving amazing things every day."