Nevine Michaan, the creator of Katonah Yoga, often says that the reason to practice yoga is “so that you don’t lose your mind when you lose your body.”
It’s an idea that has proved particularly resonant for me in recent months. I’ve watched friends get sidelined by injury as I’ve also been navigating some new physical issues.
The nature of anything material is that it eventually breaks down.
This is especially true of the human body. No matter how well you take care of your body, how well you eat, how much you workout, eventually you’ll slow down and lose strength. You might be able to delay that “eventually” date, but nobody escapes it.
In the meantime, it’s inevitable that if you’re playing life hard, your body will take some hits.
When you see people who prioritize their health and wellness be felled by injury and ailments, it reinforces the reality that even if you do everything “right,” there’s no escape from the ravages of time and impact.
This is the nature of human experience, and a primary cause of our suffering: we live in bodies that will eventually fail us in some way.
When this happens, how we respond makes all the difference.
This is the yoga of it all.
Yoga is not about getting into the poses; it’s about what’s happening in our mind once we’re there.
Do you resist the reality of the moment by trying to push through?
Do you resist by trying to live in the past or in some imaginary future?
Yoga is the practice of meeting ourselves where we are.
By staying in the body and the mind, we can find a way forward, united within ourselves.
Bodies will break down. The mind doesn’t have to go with it.
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