Why I Love Yoga – Part 2
The Healing Potential of Iyengar yoga.
Dear student,
I want to share with you why I love yoga. As I wrote in my first blog, my story began in 2005 in St. Petersburg, Russia. At that time, I was a Pilates teacher. I decided to try yoga. I was very lucky my first class was the in Iyengar yoga tradition.
After just one hour I was surprised at the change I felt in my body. I felt lightness but also achieved a great workout. But most surprising was the feeling of internal balance and calm.
What I did not share before is very personal and I was not sure how best to talk about it. What I also felt was the softening of my abdomen and freedom inside. After the delivery of my son in 1997 something changed in my hormone system that is difficult to describe. Maybe it was because I lost a lot of weight or felt the stress of being a new mom. My period did not come for 1,6 years and I did not have any other chance to balance my hormone system, so I started taking medication. My doctor said if you don’t do it, your body will get very old quickly. I would not say I liked to take hormone pills. My weight was up and down, and my mood changed a lot.
As we know, pills help but they have side effects also. It did not matter how many times I tried to find a better doctor or stop taking pills. If I did not take pills, I did not have my period. If I took them, I had my period, but had to cope with the side effects as well. Nothing else helped. After 6 years, I decided to stop taking pills and I started to practice yoga. I did not have any idea yoga would help me to balance my hormones and restore my cycle, but I got my period after 1,5 month. I was shocked! My first Iyengar teacher told me when we do Inversions they help to balance the hormone system.
13 years passed and I don’t take any hormones. I became an Iyengar yoga teacher because of my belief in the benefits of this practice.
I know yoga cannot always help but it has a lot of benefits.
This one of them.