by Angelina Jauch, Certified Ma Yoga® Instructor
Yoga is an opportunity for more embodiment and movement in my life. We all need movement to stay healthy. Movement can also mean healing.
Movement through yoga is an invitation to constantly come back to myself. Being present, checking in with myself, taking a moment to pause or meditate is sometimes difficult in our fast-paced world with its multitude of external stimuli. In my experience, movement and breath work enable us to be anchored in ourselves and find peace and calm more easily. This is true even, or especially, when we are strained, stressed, full of worry and fear, or sad.
Who doesn’t know that glow, that magical good feeling of lightness after a yoga session? That is because yoga in its entirety affects more than just the physical body. Yoga moves on all levels—physically, mentally, emotionally—and it is only in movement that we experience healing. I was able to experience this myself and have been completely enthusiastic about the effects yoga can have ever since.
I discovered Anusara Yoga at a point in my life when I suffered from headaches almost every day. The medical diagnoses at the time suggested that I was grinding my teeth, had an old herniated disc in the neck and cervical spine, that my entire neck and shoulder area was tense, and that an old knee injury was affecting my hip and spine. I tried many things to find relief. But it wasn’t until I learned the alignment principles of Anusara Yoga in my first yoga training that my daily headaches disappeared. Since then, I have been convinced that alignment is healing.
During pregnancy, our bodies change so drastically. Our center of gravity shifts, the position of organs
changes, and the alignment of the pelvis adjusts. All the therapeutic aspects that I had come to love in “normal Anusara Yoga” are even more important in prenatal and postnatal yoga. Ma Yoga conveys this physical alignment in a wonderful and easy way.
A principle in Ma Yoga that strongly influenced me is celebrating the feminine side in us: the receptive, the gentle (yet no less powerful), the life-giving, the intuitive part of all of us. While the masculine part of us (Siva) is unchanging, the feminine is always flowing and changing.
How often have I thought that I must want a lot to achieve a lot? That in doubt, I only needed to want more – or do more – to achieve even more? (Ma) Yoga reminds us in every practice that besides our will, our assertiveness, our actions, there are also things beyond our control. There is the mind that fixes problems, but also intuition that senses this bigger energy flow, the so-called gut feeling. I only (re)learned as a mom to perceive and trust my intuition again.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I believed my old life should continue unchanged. I wanted to continue playing sports as usual. I wanted to pursue my regular work and leisure activities. Nothing should change in my usual rhythm and schedule—I was “just pregnant,” not ill. I had a reality check when I developed gestational diabetes. So, at least my eating habits had to change.
With the birth of my daughter Charlotte, I became a mother for the first time. At first, I wanted an instruction manual on how to be the best mother. It took me several weeks, if not months, to fully settle into this role. It changed me. I let go of many notions and expectations. I gained new insights. And above all, I found my true self. For me, Anusara Yoga and Ma Yoga are a continuous reminder that it is always about duality: tension and relaxation, contraction and expansion, doing and letting things happen.
Such a transformation can occur at any point in life, I am sure. But I believe that the time of pregnancy and becoming a mother is particularly poignant. It is a sensitive time—with many emotions, anticipation and excitement, fears and worries, responsibility, and infinite love.
I am convinced that with the right support, anyone can undergo an incredibly powerful transformation during pregnancy and the journey into parenthood: simply by embracing both change – and the ever-present, always steady guidance within.
