How Yoga Helps me Reconnect when my Body Feels like a Stranger

Today, I’m trying to put into words the special significance yoga has come to have in my life.

For people who aren’t into yoga, who don’t want to get into yoga, or who are tired of people telling them yoga is a cure-all, I want to say that I hear you. I believe yoga can be for everyone (as in, you could do some form of yoga if you wanted to), but not everyone wants or needs yoga, and it certainly can’t fix everything.

And yet, this practice feels so deeply personal and integral to how I come to peace with my body, settle into the experience of being inside the ever-changing single body I will inhabit during my life.

I’ve written before about the significant, critical mental shift I experienced while on the Find What Feels Good yoga retreat with everyone’s favorite internet guru, Adriene. But what I struggle to put into words is the everyday role yoga has in my life. When it isn’t about completely removing myself from the stressors of my everyday space and enjoying healthy meals someone else cooks for me for a full weekend. Because yeah, retreats are amazing. But they are a limited, privileged thing to which we have limited or no access.

As the idea of working out at home has become even more widespread given current circumstances, I’ve been reflecting on just how long I’ve had at-home workout practices and what those practices mean to me.

My at-home yoga practice is about showing up with myself, to meet the person I am on any given day, on the mat. The mat that somehow still collects cat hair though Artemis crossed the rainbow bridge last June. The mat that often stays unfurled in the center of my living room, parked right in front of the TV where I watch Adriene guide me through the motions.

For many years, I’ve told people yoga keeps me sane. This is definitely a big part of what yoga means to me. I can feel it in my stress levels and reactiveness when I’ve been away from the mat for too long.

That’s not to say I flit around in a state of perfect calm and bliss when I’m practicing regularly — I’m still moody, passive-aggressively conflict avoidant, irritable me. I just have a little more clam and a little more distance from that version of myself. A little more patience with the world because I spent some time that morning being patient with me.