🙏 Gordita’s that Yoga: Namaste 🙏
January 8, 2018
Happy Monday! Today, I’m going to talk about my relationship with Yoga practices, & its significance to my personal & spiritual life. In doing so, I want to encourage my audience to tune into self care, mindfulness activities, and self reflection. Spending that time alone with yourself and your positive thoughts can manifest radical change. Diving into these meditative practices allow us to spark into creativity and find our inner truths. I want to exemplify a transparency in the world of fitness that has never been explored before. I also want my readers to discover their inner truth & fight for it unapologetically. In doing so, you can achieve a life of balance: the balance of working a fulltime job and/or school and simultaneously working on your business/dreams. Balance can also signify living in peace & harmony while juggling 100 things at once. Living a balanced life is challenging, but it is not impossible mi gente. I believe in you, but you have to be your greatest cheerleader. I challenge you this year, believe in yourself and tap into your creativity.
Why do I do yoga?I’m going to be real with you all! I had all the wrong ideas about yoga when I was a college student. It’s safe to say, I was ignorant about the practice. I thought you had to look a certain type of way and fit into a certain socio economic status to be in the world of yoga. To say the very least, I thought yoga was bougie! However, my world changed in 2015. I made a decision to dedicate my life to fitness, fall in love with the process (slow & steady) and be open minded to trying new things. I’m super hyper active and my attention span is as short as a goldfish, so I did not think that meditation techniques would be for me. Boy was I WRONG!
Today, I sure as heck am no expert in the practice & if I’m being perfectly honest, I am still learning the ropes of yoga, it’s terminology and all of it’s amazing, complex & beautiful concepts. Initially, I started taking yoga because I wanted to learn more about the practice, improve my flexibility, and try something new. In order for me to be consistent, I have to try new things. I am faithful to the gym but I also get bored really easily so yoga was the perfect outlet to dive into something new. To my surprise, I was in for one of the most unexpected, spiritual surprises of my life. I was introduced to this amazing yoga studio named Sat Nam. If you haven’t tried it and are curious about tapping into yoga, I’d highly recommend the Sat Nam studio.
Kundalini Yoga:My phenomenal mentor, Gina Marrota, introduced me to my first yoga class ever, Kundalini Yoga. Kundalini Yoga is called the yoga of awareness. “Kundalini Yoga is the science to unite the finite with Infinity, and it’s the art to experience Infinity in the finite.” (Yogi, Bhajan, 10.27.88) Until this very day, I do not know a lot about yoga, but upon taking that first kundalini class, my soul was in for a different type of awakening. Shockingly enough, something takes over my body when I’m practicing kundalini. It’s as if every fiber in my soul awakens, my energy is rejuvenated, & my hyperness comes to a complete seize by the end of class. Ladies who love to keep it moving, you will feel the physical effects that kundalini has. It literally kicks my ass! As I’m writing this, it hurts to laugh because I am still sore from the abdominal pain. That beautiful discomfort is so astounding to me because I’m not only getting a kick ass workout in, but I am intellectually stimulated by the practices & feeding my soul through meditation. Sat Nam means true identity, and I feel that this practice alone has helped me manifest my dreams and turn them into reality. In October, I attended my first love workshop at Sat Nam and it was through journaling and meditation that I became aware of my passion, creating the Gordita’s Way movement.
Manifestation: Manifestation is the ability to publicly demonstrate power and purpose through beliefs and actions. It requires vision. Be radical! Practicing meditation challenged me to destroy a diet culture. In doing so, I had to ask myself, how can I challenge society’s obsessiveness over thinness and superficial unrealistic beauty standards? How can I encourage my ladies struggling with their body image to stand up and fight a diet culture that seems to be influencing millions of women worldwide? I’ll tell you how, in the struggle, we have to fight, and personally, I have to practice what I preach. Ladies, accept your body at its current state, do not reject it. Avoid any negative triggers, that can be a combination of things! For me, it may be challenging my family’s fat phobic comments when they demonize certain food and eating habits. For others, it may be as simple as unfollowing negative people on social media who reinforce the idea that health is determined by (weight) the number on the scale and meticulous diet plans.
Diet culture perpetuates negative body images for women and men across the board. Words such as “clean eating” and “guilty pleasures” are the very terms I want you to forget! You should never feel guilty after eating something and you can certainly enjoy all the foods you like in moderation. Therefore, I want to start a marketing brand that promotes radical love, body positivity & Latinx culture. Additionally, I am detoxing from alcohol for one month! The plan is to give up alcohol until my birthday. This time will be used to focus my mind, and reach peace and calmness. The consumption of alcohol is so casual in Latino culture; that we tend to drink it a lot! Detoxing from alcohol will allow me to think clearly, and tap into that clear meditative state. You’ll still catch me having fun, only this time, my mind will be more focused on my goals this month! Sit still if you would like, manifest an intention, & start working on those dreams, even if it’s just 15 minutes out of your day! Namaslay mi gente! Namaslay those goals!
