It feels fitting to me that the International Day of Yoga is celebrated around the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. The abundance of light that this time of year holds feels congruent with the infinite potential of the practice of yoga. So many people assume yoga is just about physical exercise and postures, but its depth expands far beyond that.
There are a full eight limbs within the scope of the practice of yoga. It could take many lifetimes to reach the goal of yoga, enlightenment, or samadhi. I’ve been studying, practicing, and teaching yoga for many years, and I am for sure not even close to enlightenment! And despite spending a lot of time with yoga teachers and practitioners, I do not know a single enlightened being.
Someone who didn’t know about the magic of yoga might think that the practice is pointless if there is nothing guaranteed to be achieved. But there is magic inside the path itself. There is magic in continuing to return. There is magic in being changed slowly, sometimes so subtly that you do not even notice it until you look back and realize you are meeting your life differently.
Yoga unites us
This International Day of Yoga, I’m reflecting on how yoga is not just a practice, but something that has the power to appeal to and connect all of humankind. It is a common denominator that can magically speak to the heart of anyone, no matter their geographical coordinates, what language they speak, or whether they can touch their toes. The practice of yoga offers a place where people from different countries, cultures, life stages, and personal histories can arrive for different reasons and somehow recognize something shared.
I know this to be true, and I’ll tell you how…
Being part of the YogaRenew faculty has shown me, in a very real way, how far reaching this practice is. Every week, I log online to support teacher trainees in the YogaRenew Teacher Training program, and I lead a cycle of sessions that teach how to sequence vinyasa yoga classes. Students tune in from all over the world, from so many different countries, cultures, and life circumstances.
Just last week we had more than one hundred students join the live session, and there were more than twelve different countries accounted for:
- Canada
- Greece
- The Netherlands
- Australia
- Vietnam
- Italy
- The UK
- France
- Jamaica
- Mexico
The list goes on! This has been one of the most beautiful things to witness.
All of us gathered in one place to talk about and learn about yoga. A screen full of people in different time zones, in different homes, in different seasons of life, all choosing to spend time studying this practice. Some students are brand new teachers. Some are teaching already and want to refine their skills. Some are still figuring out whether they even want to teach at all. But even with all of that distance and difference, there is something deeply shared in the reason people are drawn to yoga.
All of us, at some point, took a yoga class and said to ourselves, “Oh, there is something special here, and I need to know more about it.”
A common thread, a shared feeling
Yoga reminds me how human this practice really is. We may arrive from different circumstances, but so many of us are looking for some version of the same thing:
- Steadiness
- Clarity
- Healing
- Connection
- Self-understanding
Collectively, a way to feel more at home in our own lives.
I recently asked students on a live session what it was about yoga that resonated with them. So many of the responses were along the lines of, “Yoga saved my life,” “Yoga helped me heal an injury,” “Yoga supported me through grief, loss, divorce, etc.,” or “Yoga has connected me to an amazing community.” As everyone shared their reasons, I observed a screen full of little video squares with kind, smiling faces nodding in agreement.
There was something incredibly moving about that moment. The answers were different, but the feeling underneath them was familiar. Everyone had their own doorway into the practice, but everyone seemed to understand that yoga had given them something they did not even fully know they were looking for.
Yoga speaks to something universal. People may come to yoga for different reasons: movement, healing, strength, stress relief, curiosity, spirituality, community, or the desire to teach. But underneath those reasons, there is often a shared human longing.
We want to feel steady. We want to understand ourselves. We want tools to help us move through change, stress, uncertainty, and transition. We want to feel connected to something deeper than the noise of everyday life.
It doesn’t matter if you prefer to practice vinyasa, hatha, yin, hot yoga, Iyengar, or restorative. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to yoga or have been teaching yoga for decades. This is how I think yoga acts as a common language, not because we practice in the same way, but because the practice meets us inside the very human experiences we all navigate.
How this practice has impacted me
When I was first introduced to yoga, I really had no idea that it was going to become such a big part of my life. Like most people, I was mostly interested in the physical benefits of the practice and, to be honest, I wanted to learn how to do a headstand. I had witnessed my aunt steadily holding Sirsasana A on a family vacation, and I thought it was the coolest party trick. When I got back to New York City, I stumbled into a high-energy vinyasa class and got seriously hooked on the practice. I found the chanting a little weird at first, but I loved the sweat and the movement so much that I very quickly began to come to class every day.
At that time, my attitude toward my yoga practice was centered on physical achievement:
- I wanted to get stronger.
- I wanted to become more flexible.
- I wanted to understand how people made these beautiful, impossible looking shapes with their bodies.
I loved the feeling of progress, the discipline of showing up, and the way the practice challenged me. I still remember the first time I was able to flow through a vinyasa! Chaturanga, check!
Then my dad passed away…
Suddenly, my yoga mat became the only place I felt like I could breathe. I couldn’t wait to chant and om and pray. I remember rolling out of Savasana and feeling like everything was going to be okay, even if only for a few minutes. This was where my yoga practice shifted from a workout to the most important part of my day. It is when the spiritual aspects of the practice showed me their sparkle.
I began sneaking away from my corporate job to take class in the middle of the day. Lunch break yoga class, I was there. Happy hour yoga class, count me in. I signed up for every single workshop the studio offered. I wanted to be around the practice as much as possible, not because I had a clear plan, but because yoga made me feel more connected to myself at a time when I felt very untethered. I just needed to be in the room.
Soon, I had enough saved to invest in a teacher training, even though I didn’t really care to teach. I was one of those students there just to “deepen my personal practice.” I remember something my teacher, Dana Flynn, said in that training that still resonates with me to this day, more than a decade later. She said,
“Most people come to yoga thinking they’ll learn to stand on their head, but what they really learn is how to stand on their own two feet.”
I found this to be so incredibly impactful because it truly was the spectacle of a headstand that got me interested in yoga in the first place. And oh my, has my yoga practice repeatedly put me back up on my heartbroken, confused, self-doubting two feet.
Practicing then preaching
When I began my yoga teacher training, my intention was only to more deeply understand the tools of a practice that had helped me navigate the complexities of being human. My yoga practice has supported me through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and it continues to support me now. It has been my anchor point to heal, untangle, cry, dance, grieve, grow, even celebrate.
To my surprise, when I completed my teacher training, I felt strongly called to share my experience of yoga practice. I wanted to tell people that yoga possesses incredible healing abilities. I wanted to tell them that it might help you touch your toes and chill out too, but what it will really do is direct you to the best and brightest parts of yourself.
That is still what I believe.
Yoga does not require us to all arrive in the same way. It does not ask us to have the same bodies, the same backgrounds, the same beliefs, or the same goals. It gives us a place to begin from where we are. It gives us tools for attention, breath, compassion, resilience, and reflection. It gives us a way to practice being with ourselves honestly, and then, hopefully, a way to be with one another more honestly too.
And now, having the chance to help more teachers from all over the world develop the skills and confidence to go and share these tools further out into the world is an incredible privilege. Every time I teach a group of future yoga teachers, I think about the ripple effect of this practice. One person studies. One person teaches. One person creates a space where someone else can breathe, soften, strengthen, grieve, heal, laugh, or feel less alone.
That is not a small thing.
Celebrating, with deep appreciation & affection
This International Day of Yoga, I am reflecting on the fact that yoga is both deeply personal and beautifully collective. It belongs to the person rolling out a mat in their bedroom, the student finding their first steady breath in Savasana, the teacher learning how to guide with more clarity and care, and the global community of practitioners who continue to return to this path in so many different ways.
I feel like we are all doing our little part in making the world a better place. Not because we are all enlightened. Not because we have mastered the practice. Not because we can all stand on our heads.
But because, little by little, yoga teaches us how to stand more fully on our own two feet.
