Yoga and Sustainability • GRS Gestión de Riesgos para Empresas Sostenibles

Yoga and Sustainability

By: Sergio Isaza Bonnet, 31 March 2021

I started practicing yoga about five years ago in the middle of a great personal and professional crisis. I came to yoga to leave my problems behind and looking to be happy. I was fortunate to find a great teacher who gave me my first flow class. At the end of it I was in pieces, but I felt complete, aligned and in perfect peace with myself. Since that day I have not stopped doing yoga. Yoga changed my life.

In parallel and in a similar way sustainability reappeared in my life. As a student I dreamed of becoming an environmental lawyer. While on vacation at an aunt’s house on my way back from an exchange at a university in the United States that taught environmental law courses, I met my first mentor: a lawyer specializing in insurance law. Many years later I had become a risk and insurance specialist and was leading commercial teams and even held a position as president of an American multinational reinsurance company in Colombia.

But something was missing in my life, and I wasn’t happy. I no longer felt excited about what I was doing, and through constant yoga practice, I realized that professional success does not guarantee happiness (which is internal) and that more than achievements and material gratification, what I needed was a purpose in life.

After leaving my last job, I dove headfirst into sustainability without being qualified to do so. I started studying climate change and renewable energies and began reviewing and designing risk products for energy companies, the agricultural sector, mobility, and sustainable construction. This is how Sustainable Risk Management (GRS) was born, a company that seeks to transfer the risks of a green world.

I discovered two purposes in life (yoga and sustainability) by following a path guided partly by choice and partly by chance. In Buddhism, there is a concept called Dharma (the duty one must fulfill in life), and recently, Jay Shetty, an English author, defined it this way: Dharma = Purpose + Utility + Expertise.¹

When you add a purpose to what you master (your expertise), which is also useful to you or others, nothing can stop you. The Rig Veda, a sacred Hindu text from the 2nd century BC, confirms this: “when there is harmony between the mind, heart, and intention, then nothing is impossible.” A couple of weeks ago, I completed the first part of a training to become certified as a yoga teacher with my teacher Esteban Salazar, an extraordinary yogi and great human being. Sitting in a hotel room in Medellín, I heard him say that to have a great yoga practice and, by extension, an excellent life, you must come to the mat (yoga mat) and daily life with the three A’s: Attitude, Alignment, and Action:

Attitude is opening up to grace. It means living life from a position of “yes, we can.” This applies to yoga and sustainability. If we believe we can, we will. Activism and actively participating in sustainability are fascinating, and we can all contribute a little bit to social, economic, and environmental development.

Alignment es estar conscientes y buscar el diseño óptimo de la postura. En sostenibilidad me atrevería a decir que no es solo parecer, sino también ser. Lo que como, si compro botellas de agua o cargo un termo, lo que consumo, cómo me muevo y si cuido mi entorno, son tan importantes como los estándares de ASG de mi empresa.

Action is the manifestation of will: the organic and energetic execution of what you seek to achieve. It is walking the path because, as Benjamin Disraeli said, “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” We must act, each from what they do or know how to do, in favor of sustainability. It is about doing well while doing good.

Every day I think about how to unite my two passions (yoga and sustainability) to serve others. Any suggestions are welcome because I believe that change starts with oneself. Just as I now give yoga classes to my friends who pay me with snacks and good conversations, I would love to add Dharma to my work and help, from what we know how to do, companies and people who share a vision of a sustainable world.

Now, if you just want to do yoga, call me. I would be happy to practice with you or invite you to one of my classes.

¹ “Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day” by Jay Shetty. Simon & Schuster. New York, New York USA. First Edition 2020.

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