why i chose yoga
i was a successful speaker, and consultant. one of the world’s first consultants on happiness. that’s right, i studied happiness for a decade and traveled the world speaking to at conferences, working with companies and applying this science to the effect of more engaged workforces, more profits and growth. and, i loved my work. still do.
but i found a limit to my own happiness. i found myself, the happiness expert, plateauing, as i whisked from Kazakhstan to Japan speaking at conferences with the likes of King Peggy and Bill Gates.
there was more. i could feel it. and, i felt a limit to the science of happiness. i had been studying and applying the decades of research on how people and teams can thrive, both for myself and my clients. but somehow it was not enough. there was a deeper longing in me. it wasn’t that the science wasn’t right or ripe enough. it’s just that it was not hitting my deeper longings, capabilities and undefined dreams, whatever those were.
so i signed up for yoga teacher training, opting for teachers from India so i could understand the source of the practice, not just the western version. i immersed in 700 hours of the vast practices of yoga, discovering yoga itself as a science focused on union of the self to reach moksha or liberation. there was my freedom. there was my depth. i began to transform, but from the inside out this time.
yoga is the ancient science of union with the self to the self. i came to understand yoga is about self realization. and that the change we seek, that quiet voice inside of you whispering truth’s, it’s already part of you. our task is to remove the obstacles, mainly our own ego and the noise of modern life, to reveal the change to itself. to do this you have to get quiet. slow down. and be observant internally. things that don’t happen so easily in our fast paced, externally obsessed western world. certainly not in my consulting lifestyle. yoga offers tools.
and wouldn’t you know it? nearly every concept i knew from the science of happiness was mirrored in yoga philosophy. but the yoga path was often more rich, layered, and human. and those layers opened the deeper results i had been yearning for, without knowing what they were.
for example, we all love to set new year’s resolutions (and promptly break them). the science of happiness has many practices around habits creation. they are great guidelines that can take you far.
and yoga has the sankalpa. the practice of intention setting. the difference? awareness and depth.
san is highest truth, and kalpa is vow or rule to follow above all others. it’s a resolve from the place of your deepest truth, put forth by your divine or higher self. put simply, it’s your heart’s true longing. positive psychology has not measured that yet. but yoga practices with it regularly.
i realized, the science of happiness can take you far. but yoga will take you home.
