I have turned to my yoga practice at almost every pivotal point in my adulthood.  When I first started out, early in college, I was instantly drawn to the effect it had on me.  The way it could transform my thoughts, calm my veins, place confidence where fear had set in.  It was unexplainable.

I could never keep a steady practice though, I had bouts of regularity and go through phases where I use my yoga DVDs a lot, though it’s never quite the same.  Part of it is my studio – a small place just blocks from my apartment, it is a haven.  My favorite yoga teacher practices and teaches there – it is quaint and peaceful and filled with really wonderful people.

I know when I treat my body terribly, it increases in my inability to handle the every day.  And when the every day includes mountains of stress and days filled with staring at a computer until the eyeballs signal they wish to jump out of their sockets and kill themselves right then and there – I become a giant, hot mess.

i.e: recently.

Take the holidays and toss in a month of shit eating and no exercising, add in some finals, a stressful busy holiday and an insane travel schedule plus the early onset of winter semester and you’ve got one (slightly fatter), manically unhappy girl.

I knew I had to make a change, I knew I needed to suck it up and join the gym again and stop buying any junk food including tortilla chips and salsa and start eating better and taking vitamins.  But when buried in what feels like a 10 mile hole, it is difficult to even begin to consider the climb out.

I opened their website this morning and almost cried out in happiness at the site of the new January class schedule.  7:30 Monday nights.  Taught by J, my favorite instructor.  I knew I probably needed to study tonight.  I knew I needed to reach the 4 chapters assigned this week and start the two papers.  And decide which accounting method I’m using for my final case study.

I threw on some yoga pants, grabbed my mat and walked 3 blocks.  My body almost screamed in both pain and joy from the familiar movements, the flow, the breaths.  The breaths.  It was like I hadn’t been breathing, or something.

I have turned to yoga the way some might turn to running or writing or retreating or singing – for relief, for comfort, for a reassurance that I have strength left.  I have laid down, at the end of practice, during shavasana and felt the most intensely peaceful I’ve ever felt in my entire existence.  When my grandmother died, and I found myself curled in a ball most nights with nothing but sadness and confusion running through my heart, I practically crawled back to yoga, made myself move again, breathe again, feel open again.  I laid down during shavasana and cried, silently, and the instructor came over and laid her hand on the top of my head.  I said nothing, she said nothing.  It was one of the kindest gestures I’ve ever encountered.

I can’t say exactly what it is, really.  I can say that it is with absolute certainty that I believe body and soul are inextricably connected – if for no other reason, then because of the innate and intricate peace I feel when I practice.

I stretch, I bend, I breathe – I am alive, again.