Your social media algorithms might not be as great as mine. 😉 Mine is full of yoga, rock climbing, surviving burnout, and millennial manager humor.
However, the yoga world is evolving right now. Pilates is all the rage, more studios are transforming into complete wellness spas, and some traditional yoga studios that were once lively are asking questions (literally asking via Instagram) to understand what's keeping their once-most-dedicated students off their mats.
When I read the comments, I find myself thinking “preach” quite a bit. Let me explain why.
In my own sphere of reality, pre-COVID life was challenging. Of course, when is it not? However, we had a system. One working adult handled before-care; the other handled after-care. At that exact moment in time, I was doing a 4 p.m. boot camp. We ordered premade healthy dinners, subscribed to food delivery services, and ate out about twice a week.
When COVID hit my particular workforce, my teams and I were 100% billable. In other words, we made money for the company rather than functioning as overhead. Working more meant that people who were overhead were less likely to be impacted by layoffs.
What was once balance was no longer balanced.
We learned to work from our phones, our cars, on vacations, and from hospitals. We literally learned what it means to never unplug unless traveling into a classified space (I don't think this counts) or traveling internationally.
As the years trekked on, children's sports, commutes, and going to the gym reentered the picture. But the expectation to be continuously available stayed.
In parallel, the cost of living skyrocketed.
My family no longer does any of the convenience-related things I listed above. We decided to eliminate them to keep our food costs roughly where they had been, even as the years passed. Meanwhile, our property taxes have increased each year, our electric bill has nearly tripled, the cost of memberships has increased, and have you seen gas prices?
In the midst of government shutdown after government shutdown, we decided to sell our house and downsize by two-thirds of the square footage to reduce our cost of living. Quite the opposite of the traditional American dream.
As I sit here painting this picture of exhaustion, trying to outrun inflation while reducing every extra in my life — I haven't even mentioned that I now cut my husband's hair, stopped getting my nails done, and downgraded my hair and skin care routines.
So back to the point — Is yoga dying?
A valid response — Why yoga? Why now?
Especially because I just told you how much I understand the time, energy, and money we don't have.
Well...
Because I think we need it more than ever. I need it more than ever.
We need to move our bodies.
In unique ways that counter the desk jobs, the commutes, the stress, and the habits we develop every day.
Yoga absolutely counts as a workout. It can challenge strength, balance, mobility, coordination, and control while asking us to move through positions and ranges of motion that might be missing from our everyday routines.
Our bodies deserve more than the same positions, the same movements, and the same eight hours at a desk.
We need to take a breath.
From our diaphragm. The kind of breath that releases the demons from the pits of your soul and leaves you feeling five pounds lighter.
Seriously, let's lion's-breath it out together.
Sometimes we need a moment when nobody needs an answer from us. Nobody needs a deliverable. Nobody needs us to solve a problem, manage a crisis, or remember what's for dinner.
Or maybe we should try this when they need something ;)
Just breathe.
We need community.
The kind of community that replenishes our cup instead of emptying it.
Our husbands, wives, partners, children, and pets will probably appreciate us more when we're not running on fumes and stomping around like an elephant because no one understands.
We need spaces where we can show up as we are, move our bodies, breathe, laugh, and connect with other humans without adding another obligation to the calendar.
And this is where I start thinking about the ways I want to change the world with yoga.
Not necessarily by building a giant studio or creating the next big wellness brand. Maybe by finding more ways to make yoga fit into the lives we're actually living.
My current list that’s ever evolving:
Yoga with weights, combining two of my passions.
Yoga mid-hike before climbing something epic. Because why not combine a little mobility, mindfulness, and adventure?
Yoga for real life: injuries, commuters, desk workers, tired mommas, spicy wives, burnt-out millennials, and executives who wish you would [insert the appropriate playlist here].
An entire series on breathing through burnout.
Gratitude meditations where we just say “Thank You” to our eyeballs, feet, hands, hormones, and hairlines for holding on for dear life when the world is testing us.
A studio class that's a little funky and passionate about what our unique bodies can do, with a dial-in option for those who can't step away from real life.
15–45-minute online yoga series for working humans who just need to drop into a yogic squat in the middle of the workday.
Maybe I'll do it all over time.
All I know is that I want yoga to be more than the class we sign up for, attend once or twice a week, and then leave behind when we roll up our mats.
I want to see yoga incorporated into all the parts of life. I think we get there with practice.
Maybe yoga isn't dying. Maybe the way we've traditionally packaged it doesn't always fit the lives people are living anymore.
Maybe we need to make it more accessible, more flexible, more connected to everyday life, and a little less dependent on people having the time, money, and energy to fit one more thing into an already-full schedule.
Maybe that's part of the future of yoga.
And maybe I'll be part of figuring it out.
All I know is that yoga will meet you wherever you are in life. You just need to pause long enough to find it. ❤️