Ganja Yoga: Yes, It’s Really a Thing

We are all divine souls navigating our own personal journeys.

Yoga is a much-touted route to self-care and self-discovery. According to the 2016 Yoga in America study conducted by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance, women represent 72 percent of US practitioners of yoga. Of US practitioners of yoga, 30–49 year olds make up 43 percent followed by the 50+ set (38 percent). A more recent trend in popular yoga – but a practice dating back to ancient times – is yoga with the enhancement of cannabis.

We asked Joy, founder of Mahogany Mary (and one of Ellementa’s advisors) to talk about what brought her to her own cannabis-enhanced yoga practice. Here’s what she shared with us.

Cannabis Enhanced Yoga

After relocating to Los Angeles in 2015, I found that I was neglecting myself. I used my long work hours and extensive travel schedule as an excuse for not making myself a priority. My health declined, insomnia took the place of sleep, and I began to feel depressed.

My lack of self-care started to affect my work, social life, and relationship. I turned to medical marijuana for my insomnia, which worked magnificently, but I still felt that an element was missing. As I shared my struggles with a close friend, she suggested I practice yoga, not only as a physical routine, but as a mental health regimen.

When I first considered incorporating yoga into my weekly routine, I had many subconscious biases as to what yoga was and whom it was for. It took my first class at a local studio to completely shift my paradigm. The instructor walked the class through each pose and directly correlated the practice to what we all experience in daily life: Challenges, obstacles, situations that constantly stretch us outside of our comfort zone.

With each position that challenged our bodies, he instructed us to not lose our breath, that breathing is what is most important.

After class, I thought about the many reasons I began to medicate with marijuana and the countless ways it benefitted me. The benefits paralleled with my recent yoga experience.

When I smoke weed, it calms my mind and my body. The daily anxiety eases away, and my mind becomes clearer.

Cannabis enhanced yoga has become a passion of mine over the past year. Through it, I have witnessed significant changes in my daily life. I am able to manage the stress that comes with being an entrepreneur, and I have experienced first-hand how a calm mind is immeasurably more creative than a chaotic one.

The true practice of yoga teaches one to look past human-created definitions of race, sexuality, social-economic status, etc. and instead to focus on the fact that we are all divine souls navigating our own personal journeys. Marijuana exposes us to the same higher-dimensional thinking and provides us the opportunity to pull back the layers of life, not merely witnessing it at face value. Understanding this creates a safe, judgment-free space for ourselves and for those around us.

When we practice yoga or sit in meditation, we face ourselves and discover how we can affect change within the world and within ourselves. For each person, the answers will be different, but the combination of yoga and marijuana can be a catalyst.

 

Joy is founder of Mahogany Mary, an event curation service with a mission to create memorable cannabis events.