Everybody knows that the month of February is the month of Valentine’s Day, when we openly or anonymously show our affection to someone special. We thought that this is the best month to talk about Self-Love. Because how can we love others without fully loving ourselves first?

Sometimes when I teach class, I compare the process of going through a yoga class to a date. A date with yourself. In the beginning it might be a bit strange and awkward, and you don’t know what to think of it. But every next date with the same person you will start to feel more comfortable. Likewise with every next yoga class you will feel more comfortable with the person you see in the mirror. Sometimes you want to keep it casual and sometimes you really want to know what sustains the person from the inside out. I compare peak postures like camel, in which you have to fully open up and surrender and connect with your deepest essence, to that moment on your date that you ask the essential questions that will determine whether you’d like to see the other person again or not. At the end of class I half-jokingly ask the students to look back at their date and determine if they are going home with the other or not. And in the case of the date with yourself, the answer better be yes!

Hopefully your yoga journey will help you to make that connection with YOU, the most important person in your life; to remember that love is your natural state; to feel that you are complete and whole and you need only true love and acceptance of your Self. How do you get there? Create space for the process of becoming your own best friend. Have patience and trust in your own dreams.

(Self-)Love is a pure and a divine power that harmonizes and unites. If you tune into that power you will experience harmony and bliss. In the words of Yogananda: ‘Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.’

Happy Self-love month! Keep us posted on how those dates are working out for you…..

Zefea Samson

Zefea had her first experience with yoga at the age of 4 when her parents practiced with renowned teacher Angela Farmer in the Iyengar tradition. She forgot about yoga during her teens and twenties and trained for boxing and the combat system Krav Maga. Zefea rediscovered the benefits of yoga when she started practicing Bikram Yoga in her home town Amsterdam. From 2006-2008 she represented the Netherlands as the Dutch gold medalist in the International Yoga Championships, finishing in the world's top 10. Zefea experienced new depths of yoga through practicing while pregnant (up till the day of giving birth).