It’s no secret that a yoga practice will sometimes bring deep emotion. What a gift it is to experience life transformation on a 2’ x 6’ piece of rubber on the floor.

A yoga instructor that I like to learn from, Leslie Pearlman, calls the yoga mat the 'laboratory for life'.  I find this to be true for myself.
It’s a place where we can show up. try new things, try hard things, honor ourselves, figure things out, work through grief, experience joy, feel exhausted and feel strong enough to benchpress a Buick. You get the picture.

I've had days in my personal practice that coming to my mat the only thing I have to bring is a child’s pose and a few (or maybe a lot) of tears. Being a human is hard, and some days that’s all I have to give.

Today, however, my tears on a yoga mat were for a different reason. I taught a tough class this morning, and my students were working hard. I noticed one of my regular students was not keeping up with the flow of the rest of the class. What he was doing, however, was honoring himself on the mat, and doing what it was that he needed to do in the moment. This is not a lazy student. He is a regular coming back to his practice after a few years away and I can see he is committed.

At the end of every class, I always thank my students for joining me. I am grateful to each of them for showing up for themselves on the mat, and for allowing me to lead them. I learn so much more from them than they will probably ever learn from me. As I was thanking them and saying our typical goodbyes, I was so over come with emotion from what I had just witnessed. I told them that I am thankful that they show up for themselves, I shared my personal story of the many times that I have come to my practice with just a child’s pose and some tears. I told them I was so grateful to witness each one of them working on themselves today. What a gift. I witnessed people coming to their mat to show up for themselves, I witnessed people honoring what their body has to bring today, I witnessed their growth.

That is yoga.

Not the fancy poses. Not the power flows. Not the meditation.

It’s showing up day after day with whatever you have to bring. That’s where we find the growth.