Stress and anxiety have always filled my life. From school to family, I always found the smallest things that could fill me with anger and even though I never physically hurt myself, I put myself down emotionally almost every week. I signed up for the yoga intersession trip thinking that it would be a relaxing trip, not that it would affect how I live my life. But after those three days at the Kripalu Yoga center, my life was forever changed. Yes, this intersession was created for the yoga, but the activities between each yoga class were so much more inspiring than I ever thought they could be. They taught me how to “ride the waves” which meant that no matter what you do, you will have ups and downs in life no matter the circumstances. The highs in life are represented by the waves coming into shore, and the lows are the water going back out to sea. The yoga instructors taught us about the waves, and how to slow your breathing which will calm your inner being. This trip was only two weeks ago, and I am still using those breathing techniques everyday and hope to do so for as long as I can. My friends, some who took it seriously and some who did not, all still found the breathing techniques very helpful. Grace Jamen said, “The yoga classes were interesting and all, but I found the breathing classes so much more interesting and helpful.” Ultimately, Grace and many other students on the trip learned the most from the breathing and the riding the waves classes.
A fun experience on the trip was yoga dance which was created to orient movement awareness and purify the body and mind. In the beginning of our yoga dance class, no one took it very seriously because the different movements seemed weird and funny to be doing when in front of other people instead of in your home with no one else home. But as the class went on, the people in the room started to flow through each movement calmed their minds. Personally, this class was very inspirational and reminded me of when I was younger taking dance classes which brought back so many great memories and moments that I thought were forgotten yet I was reminded of every time we started dancing in the class. Yes, this class was weird and funny, but, like the rest of my yoga retreat, it was also very inspirational and pulled out all of the lost memories and ideas in the bottom of my mind.
