I spend most of my days writing and recording podcasts.

In my work, I focus on stories and the feeling of awe. I believe both are the building blocks for our own inner strength.

My days start by asking myself: How can I inspire yoga teachers to change the world? How can we elevate the act of teaching yoga into an act of global transformation, class by class, heart by heart?

I believe there’s a creative and transformative power lying dormant in all of us, and when left there without purpose or outlet, we start to feel how I was feeling in my cubicle: lost, anxious, and unwell. But while yoga is a path to wellness, wellness is really the starting point, not just the end goal. It is the launchpad from which we can go out into the world and share a practice that changed our own life so that it may free others to feel the same. It is the starting point to stop focusing only on ourselves and start asking how we can make the most positive impact.

When yoga is taught with meaning, it can change the world. When it is not, it can be part of the problem.

As yoga teachers, we are uniquely positioned to spend uninterrupted time with students each week in a world where focus is rare. That time to deliver our teachings is an absolute privilege, and it is a great responsibility. We are not only carrying the torch of tradition and managing our own ability to show up as leaders, but we are also opening the door for the evolution of humanity, for millions of people to see the world with more compassion, clarity, presence, and energy to care about what really matters in a world drowning in what doesn’t.

From this place of creativity and responsibility, I’m sharing five of my poems that have resonated well with students in savasana.

I.

the yoga doesn’t start when you get to the mat

the yoga starts when you light incense before you do the dishes

and when you clean your face and your space,

when you say i’ll start small no matter how long it takes.

and when you walk slower on your way to class,

when you stop worrying about going first for fear of what will be left if you go last.

it starts when you make everybody feel like a somebody.

and when you pick wildflowers for the table just because.

it starts when you stop waiting and instead start seeing yoga in everything.

II.

you go to yoga at first because you want to get something out of it.

but slowly, yoga changes you and you realize that what you used to want is not actually what you want at all.

as you go more, it becomes what you wake up for. because more than using yoga for something, yoga is a ritual done for the joy of doing it.

you realize that yoga isn’t something that you can go to and then leave behind. it’s a ritual for living, too.

you catch a glimpse of it in your morning tea, and then in the breeze. it’s everywhere. and it wasn’t even what you were looking for.

III.

yoga sees things in me that are sometimes hard to see in myself.

it sees my potential.

it sees two me’s. higher me and human me,

the me who lives in love and changes the world and the me who hides in fear.

yoga sees that i’m constantly

one practice away from forgetting it all

or one practice away from forever changing my life.

one class or one meditation away from who I am becoming,

or one away from falling off.

yoga sees that i am constantly between both worlds,

and it sees that i am building a bridge, despite it all.

IV.

yoga is about learning not to quit.

if i thought one class could keep the demons in my mind at bay,

i would say yoga doesn’t work.

if i thought i would go from not being able to touch my toes

to standing on my hands quick,

i would have quit a long time ago.

if i thought yoga was an equation i could solve

i would have thought i was wasting my time

because the solution always turns up undefined.

if i thought it was going to be easy,

yoga would have been disappointing.

because it’s on the back of a thousand hours of yoga

that breakthroughs are built,

like rome,

yoga isn’t built in your body or mind in one day.

so don’t quit,

stay.

V.

yoga is a ritual,

like flowers placed in a special way on the table just because—that’s what yoga is.

it’s not doing yoga, like it was just another thing you have to do

it’s being in the yoga.

immersed like standing in the ocean up to your neck in water,

not sure where your body ends and the yoga begins,

not sure where the yoga ends and life itself begins.

yoga is eyes for finally seeing the ritual that is life,

and more than what yoga can do for us,

it’s about feeling called to be part of something much bigger and wiser than ourselves.

it’s the feeling of knowing you’re never alone, even when you’re standing on your mat at home

lifting your arms towards the sky in unseen unison,

with the millions who wake to salute the sun

together, that is how the ritual of yoga is done.

~

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