Measuring Success in Yoga with Vicky Tomsky

Many of us entered the world of Yoga through the door marked ‘physical’. In measuring our success, it is too easy to make direct correlations between our physical adeptness, or lack of it, and the state of our souls.

The outward indicators of so-called achievement can be very deceptive, and some of the most remarkable changes can go unnoticed and unacknowledged.

How do we measure a movement toward greater kindness and respect for others? How do we measure the strengthening of presence and awareness?

We must begin to re-evaluate our measuring devices so that our sense of satisfaction with ourselves and others is not identified with physical form. 

If we measure ourselves on the ruler of the back bends we can do, the arm balances we have mastered, and the flexibility of our hips, we will find ourselves cast adrift the moment any of these attributes are taken from us.