Resilience and the Meaning of Yoga
The definition of resilience is: “An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” Yoga means union—the practice of remembering oneness and the journey of the individual soul returning home to source.
How Yoga Cultivates Mental and Emotional Strength
We may notice a natural pull to one of these places. Some spaces are more open than others for us to connect in with. In yoga, finding a pause to see where we are naturally being guided to helps us understand where to focus our energy and attention to begin that deep journey within, allowing us an easeful path to connect to source.
So how does remembering our true nature, consciousness manifesting to experience itself as bliss, support mental resilience and emotional strength?
Through yoga, we practice various methods to purify ourselves and identify as the witness. By purifying the body and mind, we allow our inner light to shine brighter as it radiates outward from the heart, where the soul resides. We grow closer in union to source energy, and we reflect that light back to each other as we walk our unique paths to remember who we really are.
When phenomena arise in accordance with the three gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas—we can let all pass through our senses with no attachment or aversion by identifying with the witness. The three gunas, energetically speaking, compose the nature of our reality. Sattva brings balance and clarity, rajas creates movement and change, and tamas provides rest and stability. Even when we ourselves feel completely balanced, we are constantly surrounded by these forces of energy, influencing the senses.
Applying Yoga to Life’s Highs and Lows
Practically speaking, through life’s peaks and valleys, highs and lows, the deepest sorrows and the greatest joys, yoga allows us to simply observe and allow it all to happen with compassion. Whether we feel the intense heat and muscle strain of a deep, long-held warrior pose, or the blissful sensations after a cleansing round of Kapalbhati pranayama, mental resilience and emotional strength are fortified when we let go of our preferences and do our dharma simply because it needs to be done. Living your own unique role in the world in accordance with your values requires resilience in order to meet purpose with the ability to receive it.
A Personal Reflection on Resilience Through Yoga
Personally speaking, when having experienced deep lows of depression or high peaks of life’s joy, maintaining emotional resilience and mental strength to meet it all with equanimity and compassion composed the very thread of persistence to continue onward. Yoga provides the tools to cultivate resilience—allowing us to let go of what no longer serves, embrace transformation, be at peace with the way things are, and remember the bliss inherent in it all.
By remembering that we are a single drop of water and simultaneously the entire ocean, we can be resilient through the crashing waves of life and tune into that still place which lies deep beyond the surface. Feeling this place of peace and knowing it’s always available to come home to is building resilience through yoga.
About Alex Alberti
Alex began practicing yoga in 2019 to improve flexibility for jiu-jitsu and quickly found deeper healing through breathwork and movement. After four years of dedicated practice in California, he completed his 200-hour teacher training in 2023, influenced by the teachings of Sri Dharma Mittra. Now rooted in Asheville, Alex loves sharing yoga as a path to self-realization and growth. His favorite pose, sirsasana (headstand), reminds him to embrace gentleness, presence, and acceptance.
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