By Laura Hand featured on Manduka

I went to my first yoga class almost 10 years ago seeking solace from a stressful engineering job. And though I’d like to tell the story of how it was love at first OM, there was something about that first class didn’t take. It wasn’t until later that I realized, the failure of my first attempt at yoga had nothing to do with the teacher or the studio or the practice. It failed because I simply wasn’t ready, I was too busy sleepwalking through my daily life. I was fresh out of college, working 50+ hours a week and navigating the delicate system that is work life balance. I exercised regularly and loved to move, but I had succumbed to the inertia of using my physical body as a way to check out. I breathed instinctively when I needed to gather my thoughts or in the presence of tension, but I didn’t know why. I had relationships with others, but they were inauthentic because I was not in relationship with myself (despite my spending 99% of my time inside my head). The truth was, I just wasn’t ready for yoga. It’s like the first of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, “Now begins the study of yoga”, or as Nischala Joy Devi poetically describes, “with humility (an open heart and mind) we embrace the sacred study of yoga.” The practice didn’t land for me until I was humble, open and ready to receive it.

There were several things I needed to do before I would be ready to step into the practice in a meaningful way..

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