The Role of Gratitude and Compassion in Yoga Practice

Yoga is often advertised today as a physical exercise that can assist you in stretching, sweating, or tightening your abs.  But we are missing the most radical of yoga, the aspects of gratitude and compassion, when we turn yoga into a physical practice.
These two attributes are the cornerstone of the genuine practice of yoga and not the sentimental fringe benefits.  Yoga cannot be but exercise without them.  Yoga becomes a lifestyle with them.

1. The Practice Is based on thanksgiving.

Yoga is a lesson to rest in a world that is constantly urging us to accomplish more -more success, ideals, and results.
The anchor is gratitude.
It refocuses on what is not impossible to the body but what is.
Gratitude teaches us to appreciate and not to contest, compare or criticise:

• The air that makes us earthly. 
• The body that survives the tension. 
• The moment that brings peace

Thanks for substituting yoga for self-enhancement to self-acceptance.

2. Empathy Softens the Internal Monologue.
 

When they are in poses, many people have a critical inner voice and say something like, 

My posture is not that good.
Why can I not stoop a little more?
All the other people are prettier than I am.

Compassion breaks this cycle.
It brings tenderness to the practice, without meaning a laziness, it means an understanding.
When we allow compassion to enter, then yoga turns into a collaboration with our bodies and not a performance.
It helps us learn how to respect our speed, our limits, and how to stop our self-punishment for being human.

3. These Properties make Yoga a Relation, and not a Routine.

Gratitude and compassion lead to yoga being a relationship with oneself.
Any pose becomes a conversation: 

• How do I feel today? 
• “What do I need?”
• "How can I be kinder to myself?"

Exquisite conformity can never be rated close to this emotional awareness.
More important is to possess a flexible mind than a flexible spine.

4. They stretch the Benefits way out of the Mat.

Inclusivity and kindness are enchanted due to the fact that they are not confined to the mat.
By exercising gratitude, one becomes a more appropriate person in his or her day to day life.
Once the person learns to be nice to himself or herself, they will be nicer to other individuals.
The real aim of yoga is to make us look good in the world and not to be able to stand on a leg.

5. They Get us Back to Ourselves in a Distracted World.
 

Contemporary life promotes invisible competition and continuous comparison.
A combination of yoga, compassion, and thankfulness makes it a protest against such thinking.
It demonstrates to us that being an achiever does not necessarily mean working harder, but being attentive.
It is necessary to slow down occasionally.
It is sometimes simply a matter of attendance.

The Bigger Truth

Yoga is all about compassion and thankfulness, and these are not accessories.
They are used to remind us that the aim of yoga is to develop a tranquil internal world as opposed to hitting the ideal pose.

It is not the one who can stand on his hands for minutes that is the most proficient yogi in my view.
A person is the one who takes awareness, kindness, and humility to the world and himself/herself.