KARINA looks for beauty

We met with Karina-Doris Vihta @karina_look_for_beauty, a beautiful  #IavSoulmate dancing her way through life, and asked her about herself and her connection with yoga.

Karina, you look amazing in every way, lovely in your connection with nature, beautiful in your flow. Can you tell us more about yourself and how yoga came into your life?

Karina: “I love to think that yoga is whatever kind of practice that helps you come back to yourself, focus on the present moment, your breath and simply be. That for me varies from traditional Vinyasa to dancing, running, skiing. I love to experience as many kinds of yoga as possible and to take from every single one whatever feels best and create my own sequences. I fell in love with yoga in my second year of university when I was looking for a way to calm my mind and center my heart, since being a student at Oxford University is an incredible experience, but can also be a stressful one at times. Yoga constantly reminds me that with practice it all comes. And the incredible thing is it did truly change my life in a matter of weeks. 3 months after I started I had a mock examination, something that doesn’t count towards anything, but over which I used to stress in my first year to the point that I couldn’t focus enough to write the things I knew. After 3 months of a daily practice I remember going in, doing the best that I could with a calm and focused mind and simply sitting still and focusing on my breath at the end of it with a few minutes to spare. I can’t say this was the case with every single exam/challenge in my life, but it showed me that it is the right journey towards it”.

Wow, thank you for sharing such an intimate experience on how yoga can help us through our lives. Do you feel flowing through your yoga sessions helps you stay fit, and do you have any favourite ones?

Karina: “My physical practice always takes me by surprise and teaches me lessons to take off the mat, with one of the most important ones being: with practice it all comes. I am absolutely in love with inversions, heart openers and hip openers and not particularly fond of arm balances, but I am growing into loving them as I include them in my daily practice and learn so much through working on them. I guess it is in our nature to try and stay away from the things which don’t immediately spark joy, but imagine how many great opportunities you could miss by not giving your best try and discovering new passions while at it. Yoga for me started as an exercise, and I think inevitably through the nature of the exercise that yoga is, it became a lifestyle”.