Looking to receive more out of life? Then this article is for you! Today I’m going to be going over five lessons I learned about life from studying yoga for over 20 years.

So I start studying yoga about 20 years ago when I was competing in triathlons because I had no flexibility in my body. Basically, when I try to reach to my toes, I would get to about my knees with my hands. So if you can relate to that, just to let you know there’s hope because I’ve been able to open my body over the years, and have more flexibility.

I continued to practice yoga, and then about 10 years ago I was in two consecutive accidents where I had to rebuild my whole entire body, and yoga was a big part of how I healed. I was able to go deeper into the philosophy and the different layers of Yoga.

What are these five lessons that I’ve taken away, and that I can share with you today?

#1. Breathe with your whole being. So yoga, it means to yoke. It’s yoking the body, mind and spirit, and going from duality to oneness. So connecting on all levels, and the basis of that is our breath, and our Pranayama, creating that. Most people don’t breathe that well. What we need to do is drop our breath into our belly, and then also do this thing that I call a 360 degree breath.

When we’re breathing with our whole body, this will help us be more present and in the moments. If you slow down and think about it, being present is the only reality that we really have. It’s about being present in the now. So definitely breathing with your whole being is a big lesson to learn.

#2. Master the basics and master transitions. So I have studied with a lot of teachers and masters, and it’s very consistent across the board. Whenever there’s an issue, whenever we’re confused about things, go back to the basics and master the basics. We’ve got to have a solid foundation, so that we can build the house.  We are like a tree the deeper the roots, the more we can express. It’s really important in the beginning not to try to do everything at once, but to master the basics.

In asanas, it’s doing a vinyasa of five poses and doing that a hundred times. Doing this repetition over and over until you see what’s going on, so that you can start building off that. And then once you learn some sequences, it’s really about transitions and having awareness of transitions.

So for instance, in yoga when you’re stepping down on the mat, are you slapping the mat or you gracefully putting your foot down? This is kind of a metaphor for life. How are you going in and out of events and experiences in your life. Are you stressed? How much awareness you have where it’s coming in and coming out, and creating that flow that we’re looking for.

#3. Repetition, practice, discovery and layers. It’s all about repetition. It’s over and over practicing, practicing, practicing the journey. We have this idea that this external that we’re going to make it work. It’s all about the practice. Every single day I’m practicing, I’m meeting myself where I’m at, and then also discovering these deeper layers. It’s amazing when we can have this open mind, this curiosity, how the layers come in and we discover these deeper connections that we’re really looking for.

#4. One foot in front of the other. Just focus on one step in front of the other and training the mind. This is about awareness and really being able to focus being present. Focusing on that one thing after another instead of trying to get everything right, and trusting the process.

Being in the information age, I look at that we have this thing called the shiny blinking thing that we’re always being distracted from.

We can train the mind to just look at one, one foot in front of the other, we can really start having control and really being able to focus, so that we’re not constantly taking off our path by texts and emails and that new greatest thing and all these things. It’s really about coming back to being able to focus and just do one thing at a time.

#5. Don’t try to change everything at once. Any change in the body is stressful. We have to slow down and just doing one step at a time. It’s amazing when you can do this, even in life in general, how much you can learn in three to six months. To have the consciousness and awareness where you just do one thing and then you step back, you complete the task. This is really important.

Do you practice yoga? If so, I would love to hear what it has taught you about life. Let me know in the comments below!