How to Meet Your Soulmate at Yoga

You’ve seen those cute yoga couples. They connect sweetly over a shared love of downward dog and Ujjayi breath. You watch them stroll into the yoga room, roll out their mats, and start meditating in nearly perfect unison.

Truth be told, I’m lucky enough to be part of one of “those” yoga couples.

What yoga has taught me though was not just to fall in love with the cute handstanding guy on the mat next to me, although that was a fun surprise! Yoga showed me my true soulmate – myself.

The last five years of regularly practicing and teaching yoga have helped me slowly peel away layers of anxiety, insecurity, and heartache. Through a dedicated asana and pranayama practice, I’ve learned to breathe deeply in tough situations and heal a body exhausted by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Although I still face ups and downs, like we all do, yoga has helped me find equilibrium, an internal balance amongst life’s ebbs and flows. It’s equipped me with the tools to face challenges with steadiness and ease.

Here are three steps that can help you too meet your soulmate at yoga:

1. Allow yoga to heal wounds – both new and old. Truthfully, we’re all wounded in some way. We have scars from past relationships, romantic and platonic, that linger long after they’re gone. These scars cause us to react to others from a place of fear. Showing up to our mats gives us time to face our fears and fix the wounds. It stitches us up and prepares us for the good to come.

2. Allow yoga to teach self-acceptance. The greatest revolution we could ever start is one of self-love. Yoga teaches that we’re perfectly okay the way we are, flaws and all. We engage in a practice of self-acceptance on the mat knowing that poses are about progress, not perfection. When we see ourselves as whole, we begin to feel compassion for ourselves and others.

3. Allow yoga to open your heart. Once we allow this ancient science into our lives, we begin to understand how to love ourselves, to see ourselves as worthy of bliss, joy, and unconditional love. An open heart helps us take our most authentic self and turn it outwards to others, enabling us to invite in relationships that nourish our souls.

The process of loving the self and seeing who we truly are isn’t an easy one. It comes with frustration and setbacks, but it’s absolutely necessary. Before we can invite the love of others into our lives, we first have to love ourselves. We have to gaze at ourselves with the same loving eyes we gaze at others. I was lucky enough to meet my soulmate at yoga, and I hope you meet yours too.