January 1, 2013 I went to my first yoga class, not because it was a New Year’s Resolution but because I had the day off from work. Yoga can mean anything from exercise based to one that is closer to meditation to yet another that is more like a celebration of life. I ended up with a teacher who intended to destroy resolutions. Savasana is the moment when you lay still and absorb your practice. That day, I found peace unlike any other and it scared me. I didn’t go back for a long time after that.

There is this phenomena in trauma victims where they experience silence as a threat. As in the monster you see as dangerous, you still see, when that monster disappears is he lying in wait to ambush? So the person who had told me about yoga told me it would calm my anxiety. I thought, wow, did it ever, only I didn’t understand that the anxiety served as a type of protection, diligence. Without that protection I felt too vulnerable and so I didn’t return to yoga for several months. When I did, the peace didn’t come back. A part of me was disappointed but the part of me that allowed anxiety to be my protection said, this is safe now.

I fought to make yoga a habit. Habits are not easy to form especially when they require effort that goes against the grain of defense mechanisms. Have you ever noticed people who go to the doctor to solve a problem. The doctor gives them a solution. It works. That person then decides that the solution has a side effect that isn’t tolerable or they’re inconsistent with the solution (take meds or physical therapy) or even stop altogether. They go back to the doctor and complain, your solution isn’t working anymore. The patient is self-destructive in that way. Yoga was like that for me. Creating the habit of a consistent practice was by far more difficult than actually getting into the poses.

The first step is to form a habit. Part of that habit had to be reassurance that peace is not a threat. Pain is not a threat. It hurt, it was hard, it took effort, but I always took the ‘easy’ choices because I knew, if I took the hard ones those handstands, crow pose, king dancer would be the end of me, I would quit yoga. By far the most important thing was to show up for class and do what I could do, period.

Be kind to yourself. Make it a habit. If that is all you can do, that is enough.