Ahimsa: My First Step into Yoga Philosophy
There is no yoga without nonviolence.
I stumbled into yoga almost by accident… or more accurately, by injury.
I tore my pectoral in a jiu-jitsu sparring match, and since I couldn’t lift weights anymore, I looked elsewhere. My earliest yoga “practice” came through infomercials and biceps—P90X with Tony Horton. That was my gateway into western yoga, and honestly, I loved it.
From there I dove deeper into YouTube flows, DVDs from the library, and random classes—still mostly focused on the physical: stretching, sweating, pushing myself. I had no idea yoga held anything deeper. I was barely scratching the surface.
Stumbling Toward Something More
Eventually I reached a point where I knew I needed something different. My health was falling apart. My nervous system was burned out. The restaurant job was crushing me. I felt stuck in a loop of illness, stress, and the terrifying sense that there was nowhere to go for real resolution.
Inside me, something was aching to come out. I knew it had to do with holistic health. I suspected yoga was involved somehow, but I didn’t yet understand the depth of yoga or how much wisdom it carries about the human mechanism. I remember wondering, Do I really want to teach yoga classes? What could possibly be so special about yoga?
Back then, I had no idea.
Stuck in Survival Mode
My life at that time felt like one long, stressed-out shutdown response.
I was working long hours in a chaotic restaurant environment. My body was in too much discomfort to keep going, yet I didn’t see a way out. Simply surviving each day was a battle. Running a business on top of that was another battle I had no capacity to fight.
I felt skill-less, empty, like I had nothing of value to offer the world. My health was declining and my sense of self collapsed with it. Shame, exhaustion, self-judgment—they were my constant companions.
I believed deeply that the body could heal itself, and I believed nutrition was the key. I followed what I thought was a “healthy” eating lifestyle to fix my gut pain. But nutrition is confusing, and everyone claims their way is the right way. I ate whole foods and followed paleo because people I trusted told me it was the answer.
Still, my body kept failing.
Later, Ayurveda would completely transform my understanding of food, digestion, and what “healthy” actually means—but that wisdom came much later. At the time, all I knew was this:
I was not okay. And I couldn’t fix it with willpower alone.
My First Real Step Into Yoga
When I eventually enrolled in a yoga therapy program—right at the start of COVID, entirely over Zoom—I was completely ungroomed as a yogi. I knew nothing except poses. Yet there I was: signed up for a 1,000-hour training, committed to seeing it through.
That program cracked something open in me.
I began to actually study yoga—not just the shapes, but the philosophy. The depth of yoga was overwhelming at first. The sages who shaped this science were some of the most intelligent minds to ever live. Their teachings were dense, intricate, and profound. Hard to grasp at first… but captivating.
Slowly, the philosophy began to seep into me.
And what hit me the hardest was Ahimsa.
Ahimsa: The Foundation of Yoga
The first concept I truly met was Ahimsa—nonviolence.
It is the very first yama, the first branch of the first limb.
It is literally the beginning of yoga.
At first it seemed simple: Don’t be violent.
I wasn’t hitting anyone. I didn’t think of myself as harmful. I had no awareness of the subtle ways I punished myself, the frustration simmering inside me, the harshness I directed inward. So I thought:
“Okay, cool—what’s next?”
But as I sat with Ahimsa, something shifted.
I began to hear the violence that lived inside me.
Seeing My Own Violence
As I reflected on Ahimsa, I saw how deeply I was harming myself:
the way I talked to myself
the shame and self-blame
the comparisons and judgments
the constant inner criticism
the pushing past my limits
the overworking, the drinking, the refusal to rest
I realized that the deepest violence in my life wasn’t external.
It was internal.
Yoga teaches pratipaksha bhavana—cultivating the opposite.
When negative or harmful thoughts arise, we consciously shift toward their opposite: thoughts that are true, kind, supportive, aligned.
The mind is incredibly powerful.
It shapes our experience of reality.
It colors everything we perceive.
It can create us or destroy us.
If we repeat violent stories inside our mind, the body will live inside that violence.
Learning Ahimsa meant finally seeing this clearly—
and then slowly choosing a different direction.
Creating a Nonviolent Inner Environment
If healing is the goal, we must build an inner world that supports healing.
The body is unbelievably intelligent and wants to move toward balance.
But it cannot heal if the mind is constantly attacking it.
Ahimsa is not just “be kind.”
It is a radical commitment to:
dropping shame and self-punishment
interrupting cycles of judgment and comparison
noticing where we are sharp, cruel, or impatient
choosing thoughts and actions that support life, not harm it
Yogi Swami Rama said:
“Love all and exclude none.”
That includes ourselves.
If we want true health, we must become love within—not as sentimentality but as alignment with our true nature.
Violence is everywhere in the world. But it doesn’t have to live in us.
Ahimsa in Practice: Food, Animals, and Daily Life
For me, Ahimsa showed up in a clear and unexpected way: food.
I’ve been vegetarian or plant-based for years, but through Ahimsa, that choice deepened. It helped me see the subtle violence not only toward animals, but toward my own body and the earth.
Ahimsa became a practice of:
nonviolence toward my body
nonviolence toward other beings
nonviolence toward the planet
And no, this doesn’t mean perfection.
Negativity still arises. Old patterns still surface. The mind still reacts.
But the practice becomes:
Notice. Breathe. Choose differently.
We can learn to stay grounded enough inside that we are not so easily pulled into reactive violence—whether in thought, word, or action.
No Yoga Without Ahimsa
Yoga is not about flexibility or strength.
It is about creating a mind and heart that can hold life without causing harm.
Ahimsa is the very beginning.
It is the root.
The ground of yoga.
Without nonviolence, there is no yoga—only performance, ego, or spiritual decoration.
Ahimsa reminds me:
to speak more gently to myself
to give my body time and space to heal
to step out of self-destruction
to move through the world with a little more care
If you want to explore your truest health, start here.
Notice where violence lives in your thoughts, your habits, your choices—then cultivate the opposite, little by little.
Healing is not just physical.
It is mental, emotional, and energetic.
Create a nonviolent inner environment, and the body will know what to do.
