From Yoga Teacher to Christian

I grew up with two sisters, and I do not think we followed any particular religion. Even as a child, I felt there was something beyond what we can see.

I discovered yoga around the age of fifteen or sixteen and became deeply absorbed in it, sometimes practicing alone for two or three hours.

The yoga I learned was not only exercise. I was taught that the names of postures were connected with gods and that practicing them could bring their power.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had decided to teach yoga. I became a teacher around eighteen or nineteen.

Yoga was not a passing hobby. It was the center of my life and the future I imagined.

Around twenty, I met my future husband. He had a Catholic background, but was not especially active in church then, and we sometimes practiced yoga together.

In 2018 we went to a Catholic church together. For the first time I felt as though God was embracing me.

I suddenly began crying and wondered what was happening. I had never experienced that through yoga.

But my life did not change overnight. I continued practicing yoga while attending church.

I began questioning explanations based on karma, such as the idea that suffering happens because someone did something wrong. How could that explain suffering that comes to children?

I wanted to begin reading the Bible for myself, and there were many occasions when I cried at church.

In 2021 I felt I could not keep living the same way. Even after yoga and long meditation, something seemed to be missing.

Reading the Bible, I began to look toward Jesus as the way to God the Father. I decided to stop yoga and stopped teaching.

In 2022 I married, and my husband also left yoga. Together we began a journey of coming to know God.

Life has not suddenly become easy. But now I know where I am going.

Even when things are difficult and painful, I feel that I have been given strength to keep walking. I believe this comes from God.