I have officially hit year seven of doing 30 days of yoga with Adriene. It’s wild to think about. I’d been interested in yoga since my late teens. But after facing a horrible break-up, I had a moment where I sat down to evaluate my life. I felt scrambled and lost, but I had a single thought that occurred.
“Where would you want to be when you’re 40?”
And the clearest thing that went through my mind is that I wanted to be one of those women doing yoga on the beach.
So, I found Yoga With Adriene’s YouTube channel around this time. She was friendly, inviting, and endearingly, comically awkward in moments. She made yoga seem so easy and I decided that if I could do yoga with the amount of ease she did, then I won.
It started with a lot of cursing, crying, and trembling on my mat. But with time and developed muscle memory, it’s become so much more than 30 days of yoga. It’s become my lifestyle.
30 Days of Yoga Gave Me Goals
When I started doing yoga, I didn’t even have a yoga mat. I thought to myself if I could hold out for thirty days, then – and only then – would I buy myself one. Because if I could stay dedicated for that long, then I could do anything.
It wasn’t easy at first. No practice is. A lot of it involved cursing and crying in frustration at all the wobbling and shaking I did. But I found myself showing up day after day. Adriene would always say something like “It doesn’t matter how you show up. Just show up.”
And it emphasizes the importance of consistency. Even James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says “Most people need consistency more than they need intensity. Intensity makes a good story. Consistency makes progress.”
Adriene would probably say no one is doing ‘yoga wrong’. But listen. I sucked at yoga. I still have days where I feel like I suck at yoga. But I can tell you that I suck a lot less than I did when I started. And seeing that kind of progress is what’s kept me going. This isn’t just in yoga. This has been in other areas of my life too.
Yoga Gave Me Awareness
Awareness is such a small, but important thing in life. For example, most of us live with our shoulders by our ears. If you relaxed upon reading that last sentence, don’t worry. You’re not alone.
Life is hard. Tension lives in our body from a variety of things. But through yoga, I’ve gained an awareness that didn’t exist before when it comes to my body, my mind, and my emotions.
Some of Adriene’s practices, she invites her audience to notice. (She invites you to do a lot, by the way.)
You don’t have to do anything. Just notice.
It feels a little pointless at first. I became angry or frustrated on my mat quite easily. And I always thought, yeah, I’m angry. But what the heck can I do about that?
Or yeah, my shoulders live by my ears. So what?
The exercise is the noticing because eventually, you don’t have to bring your awareness to something. It becomes second nature.
The practice of noticing tension in my body was annoying because I would have to bring my attention to my shoulders and then actively relax them.
Paying attention to my body rippled out in other things I do. I find myself paying attention to my habits, why I do them, and what I can do about them.
Funny thing is, you do that enough and it becomes your nature. My shoulders no longer live by my ears.
People think I’m taller than what I am because my posture is straight.
I’m less angry than I used to be because I’m able to pinpoint why I’m riled up in the first place.
(Most of the time it’s because I’m hungry. I am The Bougie Taurus, after all!)
Yoga Gave Me Inner Peace
Look, I know that sounds like a doozy of a claim, but hear me out. I’m not a guru or some enlightened being. I’m a human trying to get through my day-to-day. But I find I move through my life with a little more ease that wasn’t there before.
I think society wires us to be incredibly hard on ourselves. Social media doesn’t make that easier.
But through yoga, I’ve found that you can accept yourself as you are. Right now.
Yes, really.
Do I have everything I want? Have I done everything I want to do? Of course not.
But for now, I’m in good health. For now, I’m doing the best I can.
When 2020 hit, I got sick with COVID and had to pause my practice. I hadn’t missed a day of 30 days of yoga and I was devastated. But at that point I realized that there’s grace and forgiveness in yoga, too. Everyone around me would understand why I wouldn’t be able to do yoga that day.
We can extend that grace to other people, but we have such a hard time internalizing that.
But I think the moment that we give ourselves space to breathe and be is the moment we touch a part of inner peace.
There are so many times during practice that you don’t have to do anything during practice. All you have to do is notice. Or breathe. And it’s enough.
And I think it becomes easier the more you show up on your yoga mat. Because every day is different.
I’ve gone to my mat angry, tired, sick (don’t do that), on my period, and grieving.
But I still showed up with all that.
Sometimes I surprised myself. And other times, I just showed up. And it was enough. In our hustle culture, that’s a radical thought to have.
Because if you’re enough, there comes a certain peace with that. And then who can tell you anything about yourself?
Yoga has and continues to change my life for the better. I would recommend anyone looking to make a practice to try it. After all, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
And if you do Yoga With Adriene, you get the added bonus of hearing her sing Bone Thugs-N-Harmony or make references to the Wu-Tang Clan, and I think that’s pretty rad.