By Katie Pearson
Wellness has become the latest buzzword in the fitness industry as our health conscious culture embraces a “holistic” lifestyle focused on the mind as well as the body. This is a welcome shift from the “core” craze, which displayed the idealized abdomen on the packaging of every fitness product. Wellness casts the net wide, but is our fitness culture still missing the essential component that truly underscores health as God intended it to be? What about the soul?
Certainly the rising popularity of yoga has introduced spirit as the third component of mind/body wellness. As a Senior Trainer for YogaFit in the first decade of this century I had the opportunity to introduce the practice to a broader audience, certifying instructors to bring yoga into gyms and fitness clubs. The postures were appealing, but the real draw was the seismic shift from focusing on appearance to one’s internal world—the realm of emotions, memory, and even deeply rooted behaviors associated with addictions.
It’s one thing to feel better, another thing to get better at a soul level.
With yoga, the emphasis moved from competition to consciousness—instead of pushing past pain, both physical and emotional, we explored taking a deep breath and diving right into the heart of it. As a result, people are practicing presence in their daily lives, preventing injuries, and reducing stress. Yoga’s arrival has also enabled a culture with a disordered body image to see beyond appearance.
But replacing avoidance with acceptance isn’t enough. It’s one thing to feel better, another thing to get better at a soul level. Replacing fight and flight with the courage to stay and breathe teaches us to respond versus react, but isn’t adequate to heal the source of our internal conflict. Through fitness yoga people were finding peace on their mats but still struggling in the rest of their lives. Revamping our relationship with our bodies falls short of securing the peace that surpasses all understanding and rewiring our behavior. Only God can do that, which He revealed through my own yoga journey.
Over the years on my mat I, too, became very adept developing emotional intelligence, or being able to identify my emotions in the moment. As an athlete and instructor with a bend toward competition and a threatening congenital spinal condition, I found the focus on my inner world inviting. I’d been living face forward, taught to always push through the pain. My achievements were born of my ability to fight hard and run fast. My coping techniques through fitness enabled me to win races, but kept me at arm’s length from myself and God.
I was healthy, but not whole. I had been walking with Christ as a believer for ten years, but only when the Lord led me to Holy Yoga, an intentionally Christ-centered practice focusing on worship, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, did I began to understand true wellness and embrace my need for a savior (not a six-pack).
I source from His strength, rather than rely on my own.
While physical fitness is essential, Holy Yoga goes beyond to “hold a space” for practitioners to hear from the Lord concerning every aspect of their life and being. This surpasses feeling, and even thinking. It’s the place of willingness over willpower, where we exchange our agenda for His divine grace and plan for our lives. It widens the gap even further between reaction and response by inserting healthy doses of listening in silence and stillness—counter-cultural to a society addicted to noise and movement. When internal and external obstacles begin to press in, I stop and rest instead of pushing forward through my agenda. I source from His strength, rather than rely on my own. Ironically, I’m in physically better condition as well!
Mark 12:30 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” As an instructor and follower of Christ, I am committed to using my influence in the fitness and yoga world to helping others cultivate that space within themselves, where every need is met by the One who designed us to live abundantly, and live well.
If you are interested in learning more about walking with God as a servant leader in the wellness industry, or anywhere in your life, join Katie for Leadership Development Training March 2019 through Holy Yoga Global, LLC. This 9-week distance learning program is open to anyone and everyone who feels called to explore what it means to step out as leader for Christ wherever called.
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