Return of the Mat

A year after leaving a role that unraveled me, I’m learning that returning to myself starts with becoming a practitioner again.

As for the title, if you know me, you know my penchant for 90s music and puns ;)

A year ago, almost to the date, I had to leave my job as the executive director of a yoga school.

On paper, the reason was simple: despite all our pivoting through the pandemic, the landscape had changed and they couldn’t afford to keep me on. But that wasn’t the whole story; I could have stayed in a more limited capacity. I also had to leave because I was suffering in that role in ways I could no longer ignore. The stress was undoing me professionally and personally, and I had seen it coming long before it happened. For awhile, I had known the situation was unsustainable. I knew I would eventually need to rely on the business I had been building for myself since 2018.

That had always been the plan, more or less. My own work would gradually grow until it could replace my income from the school. As I improved the school, I would also begin handing pieces over.

But you know what they say about plans…

Making plans can feel a lot like writing a yoga sequence and then showing up to teach on a ship, in another country, where half the class has barely practiced at all on non-moving ground, and even fewer speak English. The plan may exist, but the reality has other ideas.

Leaving that role, and leaving under those conditions, shattered me more than I expected. It took much longer for my nervous system to recover than I would have imagined. And one of the hardest parts of that year was this: I never truly got back to my own practice.

Gradually, I stopped teaching too.

I was trained in a tradition where teachers are practitioners first and teachers second. That principle matters deeply to me. If you are not practicing, your teaching changes. It becomes rote. Uninspired. Ungrounded. For me, that kind of teaching doesn’t work. It’s not how I want to show up, and honestly, it’s not really something I can do unless I absolutely have to.

So why, when I finally had the time and space to practice, did I stop?

On the surface, I had plenty of reasons. I needed more time with the kids. Their schedules and energy make consistency difficult. Sebastian’s soccer schedule pulls apart my afternoons. The house is always a mess, and clutter makes it hard for me to settle. My cottage, which doubles as my office and practice space, got painted in December and still hasn’t been fully put back together. The floor was genuinely too cold this winter. Every reason had some truth to it.

But underneath all of that was a more uncomfortable truth: I had done exactly what I know better than to do.

I had kept myself too busy, too distracted, too in motion. I had filled the space with reasons not to practice.

Trying to focus on my practice last summer in Spain. Sometimes it happened, sometimes not. It was a struggle, and I focused on the postures and being outdoors more than the internal part of the practice. It was too heavy to handle.

Then last week, I took an express birthday trip to Nice, France for my 50th birthday. It was brief (only three and a half days) and it came after a string of back-to-back international travel between March 11 and May 8. I almost didn’t go. I was tired, and it felt indulgent, and I questioned whether it made sense.

I’m so glad I went.

There is something about being in that place, especially alone, that brings me closer to my authentic self. This time, I resisted my usual urge to do everything. I had too little time to fit in all my favorite places and rituals, and instead of forcing it, I let that be true. I stayed mostly in Nice. I moved more slowly. I allowed myself to be there - present - instead of trying to maximize every second.

That shift mattered.

The trip became less about doing and more about being. And somewhere inside that, I started to feel myself returning. #lifebeyondbusy - it actually works!

A few days after I got home, something in me told me to look at the class schedule at Yoga Shala Fairfield. I’ve taught there much more than I’ve taken classes there, but suddenly the impulse was clear. It felt like time to come back to the mat.

Not because beach yoga season is approaching quickly. Not because I need to get back to teaching. Not because I “should have” already launched the online platform I’ve been imagining for the past year.

Those things aren’t enough to get me unstuck.

For me, the return has to begin with the practitioner. If I skip straight to teaching, it will feel empty. I know that now more than ever.

So I signed up for something unusual: a conversation event about how yoga philosophy can support us in the stress of modern life. The topic was aparigraha — non-grasping, non-attachment, loosening our hold on outcomes and identities and fear. It’s one of my favorite teachings, and also one I continually struggle to live.

I almost didn’t go.

I signed up, then had a sad day. Then an anxious one. The kind of anxious when I can feel all my cells buzzing. Then the kids fell apart, and I fell apart in response. Then I was tired. Then I worried about what kind of energy I would bring into the room because I felt like such a wreck.

But eventually, I gathered my things and went.

That alone was an act of aparigraha.

The conversation was raw and rich. Seven women, each carrying her own version of struggle, each willing to speak honestly without judgment. It felt deeply personal and deeply communal at the same time. I left tired, but lighter. More hopeful. More certain that I need to keep following the path back to myself - not just as a teacher, but as a person and practitioner.

For a long time, I thought that getting back to myself would require discipline. A perfect routine. A cleared schedule. A finished room. More energy. Better timing.

But maybe it begins more simply than that.

Maybe it begins by showing up imperfectly. By going even when I feel fragile. By letting practice be practice again, instead of another performance, plan, or productivity metric.

This feels like the real return.

Back on the mat. Back in the room. Back in conversation with myself.

And maybe, finally, back to the part of yoga that was never about achievement in the first place.

(To be continued with Part 2…)