By Andrea Garcia
Isha Khajawa’s love of meditation and yoga helps her balance a busy and stressful academic schedule. (Courtesy of Isha Khawaja)
It has only been a month since Fordham students flooded campus. A majority of us feel that we are drowning in readings, papers tow wrote and the thought of midterms. However, Isha Khajawa, FCRH ’19, knows the solution to balance the busy schedule of a pre-health student with her love of meditation and yoga.
Khajawa is a first-generation Pakistani American. Born and raised in Sayville, New York, she dreamed of coming to Fordham to pursue a career as a doctor of osteopathic medicine. Although officially undecided, she is considering a major in anthropology.
After spending her first semester of freshman year as a commuter, she did not have much time to join campus clubs and organizations. However, after finding an apartment off campus for her second semester. She knew she wanted to get involved on campus since she lived closer than before.
The first club she joined was the meditation club. Khajawa had been interested in meditation and yoga since high school. She began practicing hot yoga around her freshman year of high school, and at 16-years-old became certified to teach yoga classes. Shortly after, Khajawa became a regular instructor at her local studio.
“Through high school, it helped me so much to just be emotionally aware. It gave me cognitive abilities before I even knew what cognitive meant,” said Khajawa. And while a lot of people tend to think that meditation is solely centered on remaining silent, she explains how she learned meditation has more to do with self-reflection.
“You can’t define the experience because everyone’s experience is different. What I have found to be, is that you need to let your thoughts just pass you and be a third observer to your own thoughts,” Khajawa said.
While many clubs often add stress to student’s lives, Khawaja describes how the Meditation Club tries to relieve some of that stress. “We are trying to help you understand your responsibilities, but to always remember to step back for a minute and relax. Because they’re always going to pile up.”
Entirely separate from Meditation Club, Khawaja is in the official process of organizing a Yoga Club on campus. While some people question the need for both, Khawaja explains the differences between the origin of physical and spiritual yoga of traditional Hinduism and the stereotypical yoga practiced in most studios.
The Yoga Club is currently dealing with the paperwork to become an official club. “It’s just a club for like-minded people to have fun and relax,” Khawaja said.
