Dyuti Singh :
“I was commuting 40 km for work every day, braving chaotic traffic, sometimes getting home at 11pm. I was 26 kg overweight after my second C-section and the epidural crushed my back and my self-esteem. My life had hit rock-bottom of my life. It was then I decided to make a change.”
My wellness journey has been a long and winding road. I didn’t always prioritize my health but through my own struggles I discovered the transformative power of yoga. Now it is my life’s work to share this gift with others.
I inherited the discipline of Yoga from my late father who inculcated in my siblings and me the habits of rising before sunrise , morning exercise, cold shower and eating home-made wholesome meals to prepare ourselves for the rigors of the day. We spent our weekends and festival mornings having oil baths, followed by sun baths. It set my immune system so strong, I rarely felt sick until I moved away from my parents to college.
My real journey began in my early 20s when I had my first baby through a C-section. Being far away from family and no present-day communication technology to help me with post-partum, I was dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety. I was working long hours and didn’t have enough time for self-care. I had a brush with yoga at neighbourhood society park and felt good before I could delve deep into it, I had to move to Bangladesh with my family.
I enrolled with Shazia Omar’s Yoga+Pilates classes for 3 months but couldn’t make it to class as often as I’d like because of erratic work hours. I was commuting 40 km every day for work in chaotic traffic, sometimes reaching home at 11pm. After my second C-section, I was 26 kg overweight. The epidural had crushed my back and my self-esteem. My life had hit rock-bottom.
It was then I decided to make a change.
I enrolled into weekend Hatha classes and started practicing at home everyday. I started to pay more attention to my diet. As my yoga practice deepened, I wanted to explore the spiritual aspects of the practice. I enrolled into 200-hr teacher training in Hatha where I learnt to incorporate meditation and pranayama into my daily routine. Subsequently 500 hrs in Therapeutic Yoga, I learned how yoga could be used as therapy to heal people’s ailments. I started to read more about yoga philosophy and began to understand the deeper meaning behind the practice. Now I began to understand why yoga is important in our lives.
My wellness journey hasn’t been always smooth. There have been times when I’ve struggled with self-doubt and insecurities. I sometimes feel like I have to be perfect and when I fall short of my own expectations, it can be discouraging, but I’ve learned that the most important thing is to show up on the mat everyday and be compassionate to myself. I am often busy teaching classes and taking care of others but I realized that you can’t pour from an empty cup. I make a conscious effort to prioritize my own self-care, whether that’s practicing asanas, going for a walk in nature or simply taking a few minutes to breathe and center myself. Now, fitness is my passion.