It took me quite a long time to come to the realization that it’s ok for my body to continue to change over time. When I started my yoga practice, I was at the beginning of a health journey to begin loving myself again and getting into great physical shape after having my first two children. I had only known and understood the body that I had all of my life. Pregnancy and birth definitely changed my body tremendously and it was like I was living inside of an alien. It took some time to understand how I moved, how I looked, and how I felt.

I started a yoga practice in the summer of 2016. I fell in love with how the movement made me feel. My practice was incredibly ego-led and goal focused. I found inspiration from social media and wanted to put my body into these - what I deemed - phenomenal shapes. I didn’t care if I was honoring my body or listening to it. I had an end goal in mind, and I would drop everything to get there. Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. King Pigeon. That’s was my shape. I would find myself on the mat day after day, working into the parts of my body necessary to find this shape. I found myself online, on social media, researching tips and tricks on how to achieve this particular shape. But why? The ego.

Circa 2016 at the very beginning of my asana practice. Finding a bind in mermaid and clearly not satisfied.

It wasn’t until I started my yoga teacher training program in 2017 that I understood an ego-led practice. My teachers, my mentors, fellow students truly challenged my way of thinking. What was I trying to prove? Why that shape? Why that posture? And why was I beating my body up in order to achieve it? Attaining the shape never changed, but the mindset on getting there completely shifted. It was no longer an end goal, but an opportunity to explore what surfaced during the journey. To me, this shape was fascinating. It physically looked beautiful, and at some point during my in-depth training, I realized it would take a lot of emotional healing in order to achieve it. Yogis say that emotions are trapped in the hips. It’s also incredibly vulnerable to open the chest to the world. During this time, I was suffering from all sorts of traumas… birth trauma from my girls, physical trauma from surgeries, emotional/mental trauma from my childhood and early adult years. I had been exposed to ripping my heart out and finding a sense of healing from years of stuffing it down, and my perspective on finding the journey through this shape was exactly what I needed. I was officially diagnosed with PTSD, and it was as though this particular shape was the perfect time to learn and heal.

I found a strong daily yoga practice, and I started teaching yoga to the community. I jumped head first into learning and sharing all things yoga. Negatives, positives, physical movement, meditation, philosophy, it didn’t matter. I was constantly learning, growing, shifting, and evolving. I just wanted to share everything I knew with anyone that would listen. On Wednesday, March 7, 2018, in the stretching area at the Mansfield Area YMCA, after a good old fashioned run on the treadmill, I set up my camera as I usually did to document my yoga journey. I settled into a half pigeon shape, which had become my favorite shape of all. This shape gave me a sense of relief and allowed me to soften into what I was feeling on any given day. I began to move my body as I always did exploring what surfaced. I snagged the tip of my sneaker, and BAM! There it went. My body softened, my chest opened, my heart exploded. King Pigeon. At last.

Did I feel a sense of accomplishment? Sure. Let’s be honest, I had been working on softening, opening, and strengthening my body for almost two years. Did I feel a sense of pride? Absolutely. I’m a human being after all. But was it the end? Was that it? Did I check my box and move onto the next goal? Absolutely not. Sure, my body was there. I could create the shape. But there is so much more to the yoga practice. The benefits of creating and finding shapes are contained within the whole journey and expression of the posture. It’s about absorbing, learning, and never thinking the end is the “full expression.” Some postures are challenging. Not only in the physical aspect, but in the mentality of the practice, too. This is a space where the ego can be challenged. There’s a fine line between pushing and pulling, finding the middle ground, learning to listen to the body, learning to challenge but let go is incredibly difficult… and that’s the beauty of yoga.

Much like life changes over time, the yoga practice does as well. At the height of the pandemic, I found myself extremely pregnant. I had never practice yoga during pregnancy as my practice started after the birth of my first two children. This completely altered my way of approaching my body. I truly didn’t think there was more to know or learn, and here the practice proved me wrong. My body changed again and so did my physical yoga practice. It was another lesson in time for me to learn and honor my body.

So what happened to that shape I vowed so deeply to learn and know? Well, much like my body, the shape changed. To me, it was fascinating. It was challenging to learn how to find the same sense of softness and openness I had in one shape and alter it to something similar. It was also incredibly rewarding. I had come to love, know, and learn that my body is a miraculous vessel that gets to change over time along with my heart, my soul, my breath, and my mind. I continued to practice yoga throughout the duration of my pregnancy, honoring and respecting my body. What a phenomenal experience!

Peep that big belly drooping circa 2020 towards the end of my 3rd and final pregnancy.

Relearning a body post pregnancy is hard. Body shape, strength, flexibility… it all changes. Everything sags. Everything hurts. Everything feels foreign. But, if you find kindness and honor the body, it can be rewarding. Slowly over time.

Recently, I had a student in class at The Yoga Haven mention how he has always imagined finding his way into a mermaid posture. I was instantly shot back in time to a 2016 version of myself I grew to know and love. In that moment, I revisited shapes, binds, postures I hadn’t played with in quite some time. I allowed myself to fall back into that place of creativity and move my body in ways I hadn’t in years. I had let go of a large part of me after the birth of my last child. My body changed. My mind changed. My King Pigeon shape changed. And guess what? That’s ok. This is the yoga. This is evolution. It’s never linear or one direction. Life, the body, the practice, everything in the universe is constantly changing in all directions. And if we stop, pause, be present, be in the moment, we can learn so many things. So I invite you to revisit old shapes, old experiences, old challenges, old ways of thinking… and maybe notice what comes up.

The Practice Over Time

Impostor Syndrome

Clarity of Language

The Yoga Haven