Storytelling through Yoga

“The Storytelling Principles told through Yoga” is an infographic created to deliver a new take on how people view yoga. I created it as a way to combine two of the things I enjoy that many people wouldn’t necessarily put together.

I wanted to created emphasis on how universal storytelling can actually be, and how you can find the main aspects of storytelling in many of our daily practices.

Like many things in our lives, stories stem from our routines and relatability. We want to feel like we belong and that there are others who are like us – doing the same things and thinking the same things. This is why the most important parts of our lives include relating to others, whether it be in the stories we read, or the yoga poses we do; we want to find common ground. I’ve practiced yoga for 10 years, and always find that relatability in the poses I do, whether I’m feeling flexible or not, there is always something in each pose or a modification that I can find a place in.

The exact same idea goes for a story, the reader must relate to it – if not as a whole, to some aspect of the story – in some way. 

The universality of storytelling is key to why stories are so revisited. Each read yields a new pathway for expansion of feelings and knowledge; no one read is exactly the same for each person, or even the same person the second time.

Yoga poses create the same feeling for the practitioner; a deeper understanding of oneself through the pose is invoked as the journey continues on.

Yoga also adheres to a formula – even though as time has passed and the formula has been manipulated and changed – there is always a basis of the origins like that of the story spine. The reader and practitioner can assume what might happen, but like most good stories, the audience is kept focused and engaged until the very end.

Whatever way you like to take your stories and your yoga, there is a plethora of media to give you exactly the kind of connection and interaction you crave.

Storytelling is integrated in every delivery system we use – from our phones to our laptops, or in person – the principles are employed to get the message across. 

My hope is that this infographic begins to break down the notion that storytelling principles are only meant for stories in the conventional sense. Each of our lives, actions and processes possess a story and if we look closely and begin to see that stories exist in so many aspects of our lives, truly being universal in and of itself.