A few weeks ago I posted about needing a spiritual home to deal with my anxiety and a friend reached out to me. She said she is called to teach me yoga. At first I thought I’ve been doing yoga since I was five but that isn’t exactly true. I might have been getting into poses now and again and going through the motions, but I was never going there. I was never going anywhere.

Picture a person holding their breath through a difficult pose and you see how I have been getting through the tough stages of my life. Enduring it, but fighting it. Any beginner to yoga will tell you- yoga is the breath. It’s not twisting yourself up for a couple minutes while your mind wanders and then moving on. It’s a spiritual journey of being present and diving in. I didn’t know that. In truth, after 35 years of my on-again-off-again love affair with the practice, I don’t think I’ve ever truly embraced yoga until now.

I’ve spent my whole life searching for something (or someone) to make me okay. My Catholic upbringing didn’t do it for me. My love affairs didn’t fill the void. Neither did friends, food, fashion, movies, art, marathons, literature, alcohol, work, gardening, philanthropy… you get the picture. Fill in the blank- it didn’t make me feel whole. Only now do I see the equation more perfectly than I ever have in my life. Those things are all wonderful and beautiful, but they exist outside of me. I never knew that everything I ever needed exists right here in me. Right here in the breath that I seem to hold captive. I am enough.