Assignment #1: What is Yoga?

If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place. --Orison Swett Marden, American writer

I once thought that defining myself through my career in healthcare would be deeply fulfilling. I thought I’d feel like Dorothy returning home to Auntie Em and the farm in Kansas after a long, winding expedition through Oz (or grad school). But I don’t. Everyday my career twists me in a thousand directions, none of which direct me toward my sanity, friends, home, husband, our dogs, health, or well-being. I haven’t found my place in my career.

Being on the mat, as it turns out, feels an awful lot like my place. To me, yoga is how I grow. It’s how I feel my life broadening and deepening. Yoga is that perpetual tonic. Through the practice of yoga, I can move out of my head – slow the racing thoughts and mute those nagging, self-critical voices – and tune into my body.

I also think that yoga helps me play with my edge, moving past fear and trepidation and into uncharted territory. Last March, I resigned from my job and took a one-week vacation to California before starting my next position. My confidence had bottomed out and I needed yoga to pick me back up, so I dropped in on a Strong Vinyasa class at Smiling Dog Yoga Studio in San Luis Obispo, California. My teacher, quite unpredictably, pulled me up into a handstand in the middle of class, held me there for a good 30 seconds, and commanded me to squeeze.

At first I panicked: What the f---! GET ME DOWN!!! I didn’t know what part of me to squeeze and I was sure I’d tumble backwards. When he promised that he wouldn’t drop me, I thanked him quietly and felt the fear morph into complete awareness of the grip my hands had on the floor, the core, thighs and glutes tightening, my shoulders and triceps engaging, and then my breath. It was exhilarating to explore this new challenge and to begin conquering the trepidation.

So, I suppose yoga isn’t just a series of poses, but a process. It’s a process that quiets the mind, nourishes the body, heals the spirit, and guides me to my place. Oh sure, Dorothy said “there’s no place like home,” but I’d say there’s no place like on my mat.