Your Quarantine Yoga Practice (and Progress) Looks Different, and That’s Okay

This heightened awareness that we are experiencing in every other aspect of our lives can also be found within ourselves and what our personal mind, body, and souls need, right now. So, if you’re feeling like you’re “losing” your practice, this is impossible. Your practice is you.

Redefining Progress

“Progress not perfection” is a great mantra. It brings into focus the practice of yoga rather than the visual achievements we see such as handstands or that new #yogiseeyogido trend. Sometimes, though, I wonder if the definition we’ve attributed to “progress” is focusing on the “gains” that we are striving towards in yoga. Now don’t get me wrong, I have been working towards my handstand for years and will continue to because it makes it feel strong and challenged and brave. But what if we saw the act of showing up as progress? Even if I never hit a minute handstand (which is quite possible) I am still progressing in my practice by showing up, doing the work, and incorporating the asanas and other limbs into my life. The conscious choice of practicing in order to feel strong and brave is where the magic is.

Fear-Based Progress

A little fear that’s popped up a few times during quarantine is that I am going to “lose” all of my progress I’ve made in my yoga journey. ⁣As fears do, this one highlights where I feel unsure or misaligned with where I am and where I want to be. Feelings of shame, embarrassment, frustration, and lots of self-criticisms show up to remind me that the only constant is change. Progress isn’t linear. It evolves and shifts and flexes and expands. Just like a good ol’ flow.⁣ I have been experiencing shame around “losing” my yoga practice. But maybe I’m more worried about the identity that yoga gives me. What I’m really experiencing is my ego not wanting to lose “gains” in my flexibility, inversions, arm balances, etc. I recognize ego is fueling this feeling, but it still comes up.

Your Body’s Wisdom

I’ve also been grieving the classroom space. Experiencing the duality of being completely alone in my own flow while being surrounded by others who are experiencing the same is incredibly powerful—an illustration of the connectedness of all of us. In my practice, it is the one place where I never feel I’m supposed to be somewhere or doing something, else. I show up 100% on my mat and just be in my practice. For the most part, no one else exists outside of the four corners of my mat during that 70-minute flow. I am practicing letting the ego go to know that I am having the asana practice that is needed right now. The brilliance of your body is that she knows, inherently, what you need at every moment of every day.

We’ve learned not to listen, thinking we need to seek external insight and advice for how to make our bodies work better, faster, stronger. But in your unique experience, only your body can tell you what you need. And right now, she’s probably asking you something different than when we’re not in quarantine. This heightened awareness that we are experiencing in every other aspect of our lives can also be found within ourselves and what our personal mind, body, and souls need, right now. So, if you’re feeling like you’re “losing” your practice, this is impossible. Your practice is you.

By Jordan Page

 

Jordan Page is a traveling nomad who takes her love of yoga with her everywhere she goes. She also believes you can learn a lot about someone from their Hogwarts House. After completing yoga teacher training in 2017, she and her husband converted a school bus into their tiny home in which they now live and travel in full-time. She has taught in multiple states around the U.S. and in 2019 she completed her professional coach training through iPEC and earned her CPC. Through yoga and coaching, she works to empower and inspire women to own the life of their choosing through conscious, purposeful intention. She is purposefully living, while not taking things too seriously.

NOTE: This post is part of a collaborative media series organized and curated by Omstars and the Yoga & Body Image Coalition intended as a deep dive into yoga & body image.