It all began years ago, my love of weight lifting.

I used to lift tiny weights for many repetitions and run my butt off, literally—I actually had an eating disorder and, on top of this, used exercise to deal with the stress of college.

It took me years to learn how to accept that I love working out, genuinely do need it to cope with life’s ups and downs, as well as to come to terms with what healthy exercise is.

For me, healthy exercise is something that improves the quality of my life rather than detracts from it.

For example, back when I was in my early 20s and running about 13 miles a day, I received a monthly running magazine. In it, one month, a person was writing about how on weekends she spent hours away from her husband and children to “train,” and that her family had just come to understand that this is how she spends her weekend mornings. She said that, yes, it means missing her kids’ games and activities more often than not, but she was okay with this. Well, the thing is—I wasn’t.

I mean, what another individual wants to do with her Saturday mornings is obviously fine with me, but in that moment I vowed to myself that when I was married with children I would never let exercise become more important than my family.

This said, the recent holiday of Easter had me thinking about this vow.

My children are four years old and nearly six months old and my husband and I were hosting the rest of our families that day. On Saturday, I doubled up my weight routines so that I could leave Sunday open for a total rest day, to focus on my kids and cooking.

Still, when Sunday rolled around, the eggs were all retrieved from their hiding places and my oldest child was happily nestled in Daddy’s lap eating jelly beans, I looked at this cozy threesome and announced that I was heading downstairs to lift. After all, I had only recently gotten back into it, also had a week or better of being sick under my belt and, additionally, felt that this exercise could help me best enjoy the rest of the day and our company. So I worked out.

From what I understand, most people lack motivation, instead of having to continually check in, as a former exercise over-doer, with what is healthy for their bodies and lives.

Friends tell me all the time that they don’t know how I push myself to get on my yoga mat at home, and to workout in general all by my lonesome. I guess what I don’t understand is not wanting to exercise.

When I went to my first yoga class, at my challenging Baptiste-style studio of choice, in months—like eight months—I felt strong. I felt flexible. It felt great. More, I was relieved that my “home work” was really doing it’s job of keeping my body fit.

Yet, the reasons I actually came back to weight lifting are many.

From super cold temperatures making a toasty home practice less practical, and natural means to cope with the post-baby blues, as well as wanting to, frankly, fit into my clothes again and strengthen my body so as to lessen discomfort from my physical ailments, such as scoliosis, I got back into pumping iron.

On top of these reasons was the all-too real reality that my mind was wandering a lot when I did practice yoga or try to meditate and, with weight lifting, I was a beginner again—my mind was entertained with focusing fully on the sensation of my biceps during preacher curls, for instance, or with holding my lower belly in tightly when properly executing bent-over barbell rows.

In other words, I was actually practicing my yoga much more efficiently when downstairs in my home gym and not on my sage green Jade sticky mat.

And then I got the new Israel Nash album. I yearned, the second I heard it, to flow through vinyasas to his jam-band music and Neal Young-esque voice. So I did. And when I finally did, I realized that my heart and mind were in it, for the first time in what felt like forever.

So I got on my sage green yoga mat again the next day. And the next.

This wasn’t different, mind you, as I have always gotten on my mat regularly. What was different, though, was that I had my flow back—I had my yoga back. When I reflected upon what had changed, it hit me like a fifteen-pound weight (ha): in stepping out of my comfort zone of vinyasa yoga and into my old tennis shoes, I had gotten myself out of a rut.

I had moved through my post-baby blues—the world now seemed sunny when I woke up, excited to get downstairs and lift.

I had gained strength—my chair poses, planks and half moons felt glorious.

I felt like a beginner in my yoga practice again, because I had again developed a beginner’s mindset elsewhere.

And the most important change that had occurred? I fell back in love with my yoga practice because I decided it was okay to fall out of love with it in the first place.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is question why we do what we do every single day—because just like that our habits become who we are.

And I didn’t want to be monkey-mind, semi-half-ass yogi Jennifer any longer. No, I wanted to be strong, supple, powerful gym bitch Jennifer. What surprised me, however, was my ability to be an entirely unexpected Jennifer simply because I began to question why I was pigeon-holing myself into pigeon pose.

Actually, there are many weight-lifting yogis. Regular practitioners know that our yoga practices can be greatly improved by adding in strength training, especially as we do become more flexible.

So, yes, some days I’m gym bitch Jennifer, pumping out shoulder presses to Rage Against the Machine or The Verve and others, I’m yoga girl flowing through sun salutes to the sound of my breath. Yet, in both places, my downstairs gym and my yoga room, I’m me—I had just forgotten that I could have so many facets sparkling all at once. Or, more accurately, I’d let a few get coated in dust.

And in blowing off the ashes of my self-imagined limitations, and in seeking to find who I actually am, after the kids go to bed, I got acquainted with someone it turns out I honestly like quite a lot; someone who still loves yoga; someone who loves her yoga practice enough to be okay with not loving it all the time.

Who are you? Where are you limiting yourself? What habits of yours could be changed or, at the very least, questioned? Will you have the motivation to step up and step out of your comfort zone?

You know where my self-motivation comes from? Curiosity.

I’m interested to see if I can make the muscles around my spine healthier. I’m curious to see if I would miss my yoga practice if I gave it a tiny rest. My recommendation is that, today, we get back in touch with our curiosity. (This is easy to do when raising children.)

And even though I was afraid I was falling out of love with yoga, it turns out I wasn’t—I was just allowing myself the space to fall in love with a few other things too.

Photo: Flickr/Child’s Pose.

The post How I Fell Back in Love with Yoga After Falling Out. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It took me many, many years to learn whether or not I need to take a day off from exercising—or push through.

At one point in my life I ran a 13-mile loop every day, as in seven days a week. I also weight trained and rode the stationary bike at the gym. I would work out for hours a day, and sometimes more than once; obviously, I had a problem.

And then my body gave out in various ways and I was forced to take down time, but I was also forced to recognize that I love exercise.

I love sweating and pushing through and endorphin release—and even yoga clothes.

I love Spinning and running, walking and hiking, yoga and Pilates—you name it. So the choice I had to make was, to me, quite simple: I had to learn how to be an exercise enthusiast without going overboard, and what I’d like to share with you here is what years and years of experience have taught me (as well as a few of my favorite “day off” suggestions).

If you’ve pushed through for a couple of days in a row, it’s time for a rest.

If you cannot remember your last day off, it’s time for one.

If you feel depressed and sluggish, it’s time to push through.

If you are sick from the neck down, it’s time to take it easy.

If you woke up feeling tight and sore from sleeping incorrectly, it’s time to push through, but gently.

If you’re tired from not sleeping long enough, but not so tired that you could injure yourself, it’s time to invigorate the day with a workout.

If you have a slight cold or feel a cold coming on, it’s time to have a slow-paced, short workout to boost immunity rather than deplete.

And my favorite: those times when I genuinely don’t know what to do; when I really am having a hard time listening to my body because my brain wants to workout or my heart needs to be silenced for a little bit, I begin to go through a yoga flow or a trek on my 1980-whatever Nordic Track—and if I’m still not into it after ten minutes, I stop.

Let me say, however, I’ve only stopped twice to my recollection.

Moreover, our muscles cannot become their strongest if we never take time to let them be at ease. Actually, this is why yoga is so ideal: it encourages both release and relaxation of the muscles and also tone and strength. Still, those days off can be tedious for our brains in our monkey-mind society, so, in order to make the most of my days off, I try to do one of the following.

I schedule a massage. 

A massage is the perfect way to treat an athletic body during rest days. Even a 30-minute session is remarkably wonderful for our bodies (and, also, for our wallets).

I do something else I love during my exercise time-slot.

I love making crafts with my daughter, indulging in crappy Netflix shows and reading, so a day off is a great way to celebrate with one of these other activities.

I schedule a phone date with a friend.

I’m a mom who never talks on the phone. For one, I don’t want to take time away from my children to talk and, for another, they are young enough that it really isn’t practical. That said, I miss my friends and my family that I love talking with—which is exactly why I occasionally skip my morning workout and call a friend instead.

I meditate.

Now, to be fair, I love going through a short, simple yoga flow that almost feels like a day off—it’s so gentle and low-key—but it focuses on opening my shoulders and hips so that I can sit without discomfort for a longer period of time. This suggestion of meditation, I feel, is crucial. If we are constantly running away from our lives and minds during our workouts then, in my experience at least, we’ll often find that the problems we are running from have grown in size instead of shrinking.

In other words, taking the time to sit in complete silence gives us the opportunity to find mental relaxation without requiring movement. 

And, really, shouldn’t a day off feel glorious and not forced?

Simultaneously, if we find exercise and movement enjoyable we’ll do more of it, naturally, without having to push through. In this vein of thinking, a day off is actually the perfect way to celebrate being an exercise enthusiast.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get ready for my massage…

Photo: Nick Webb/Flickr.

The post How to Know Whether to Take a Day off from Exercise or Push through (and Rest Day Suggestions). first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Date a girl who likes to shovel—she’s not afraid to dig deeply into life.

She’s not afraid to get red and sweaty in a way that has nothing to do with sex, and while it might not seem important now, it will become welcomed when life gets difficult and when she’s delivering your baby after less than 30 minutes in the hospital, including parking time.

A girl who shovels knows to take it moment by moment, or else it would be too much. She knows there is often ice underneath powdery perfection and, yes, she made up that terrible metaphor for how she can handle love and humanity’s flaws.

She enjoys the simple things, like exercise and the outdoors and she knows, also, that these basic pleasures will keep her mentally and physically healthy to both enjoy and deal with the world as it comes to her.

A woman who shovels understands that her Pilates and yoga workouts are meaningless if not translated into daily living; she has a strong body and the ability to breathe through life one inhale and exhale at a time.

She’s aggressive. She’s aggressive enough to love the way that love deserves—powerfully and fully.

Date her because the most noxious fumes she wants to smell are the ones coming off the grill sitting in the driveway, piping smoke away into the snowy air.

She appreciates the shot of tequila you brought out to her and she took your offer to help as the token of love that it is and not as a sign of her femininity. More, she knows when to both accept help and turn it down.

She’s self-reliant and fiercely so. She’s the definition of a strong, independent woman. Still, she doesn’t believe for one instance that love is without need.

But she is no masochist—the skirt of the driveway is a beacon of joyful completion.

Yet she doesn’t fear challenges. A woman who shovels is likely the most stubborn bitch you know—which comes in handy when she ferociously stands by your side through life.

Date her because she knows snuggling by a fire would be romantic, but that getting you safely prepared for work the following day is a much more practical gesture of her affections.

Date her because she’s not afraid to be practical. Yes, love requires romance, but lifelong partnership requires much more (and she knows this).

Date her because her parents shoveled too. She watched her mom don thick, brown suede snow boots and head outside—and she’s learned the value of working for what you want.

Date a girl who shovels snow in a chevron pattern because she’s a geologist at heart (okay, personal inclusion there—bwahaha, geolgist-jokey pun intended).

But, seriously, date her because all she wants as a reward for her hard work is a snow-angel—this woman knows, equally, how to play and work to capacity.

Date her because you might someday want to marry her, if she’ll have you, and then, if you have her children, know that she’ll want her own little daughter to watch her shovel with her nose pressed against the cold glass inside, standing near a more-than-capable dad—date her because she believes that both men and women should be feminists; that all of us are more than capable human beings.

But, lastly and without fail, date her because, at the end of the day, she knows how to make it easy to come home.

Photos: Author’s own.

The post Date a Girl Who Likes to Shovel. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Don’t ever Google “post-baby body” and expect to find something uplifting.

Also, I shouldn’t have Googled my weight and height, what’s “normal” weight-loss post-baby or anything else along these lines, like I did.

The reason is simple: I’ll never have my pre-baby body back—thank God.

Right now, I’m 11 weeks postpartum and my linea nigra is fading, but still going strong.

I’m one of the lucky women who have a linea nigra, a dark line, running across my skin from my pubic bone to up between my ribs. I use the word “lucky” with no sarcasm whatsoever.

Having this kind-of-thick dark line running along my skin is one of the most beautiful things that happened to my body during pregnancy. My mother’s line faded from my first pregnancy and I do expect it to fade completely after this one too, but it’s a dead giveaway that I just gave birth, no matter how taut or tight my belly appears to people looking at it through clothing.

Yet I can’t say that I’ve been in love with my postnatal body. (I did, after all, honestly Google the things mentioned above.) And I’m not proud of that, but I’m not ashamed either—because many women want their “pre-baby” bodies back, but we feel either guilty for admitting it out loud as we cradle a gorgeous new life within our new-mother arms, or we unhealthily obsess over it.

My yoga practice has actually been pretty amazing since giving birth.

But the first time I attempted crow pose—a posture of strong spinal flexion and abdominal lift that I couldn’t safely perform during pregnancy—I felt “clunky.”

I felt “clunky” and heavy as I tried to shoot my feet back into chaturanga.

Gone was the quiet floating of my pre-pregnancy days and, here, were the new ones of big toes kind of plopping down as I tried to get back in touch with my abdominal muscles.

And I mean that: my yoga practice after having a baby was all about “getting back in touch.” It was like a friend I hadn’t spoken to in months and we were catching up, but instead of talking about work or my kids, I was listening and communicating with my intercostals and my obliques.

And I’ve been getting on my mat every single day since about four or five weeks after I had my baby. I’ve been arriving for at least five minutes of daily core work and, typically, 20 or 30 minutes of some sort of flow sequence.

Yet the reason I’ve been doing these things isn’t related at all to my aforementioned Google searches, but to the simple fact that every time I get on my mat I breathe away not only my life’s stressors, but I realize that I love my body so much, exactly as it is.

I love my linea nigra.

I love my slightly loose skin.

I love the fact that my crow to chaturanga is getting lighter and stronger and I love that I can feel my body as it regains both flexibility and strength. But I don’t love these things every day.

Some days I just feel ten pounds heavier than before I had my baby.

Some days I can’t stand the slightly loose skin.

Some days I feel clunky in general, not just in crow pose.

But that’s the thing: my daily yoga practice has given me the power of getting in touch with where I am, right now, regardless of whether or not that’s where some silly celebrity blog says I should be or whether so-and-so still has ten extra pounds.

Because, when I’m on my mat, there are no arbitrary numbers—only me, Jennifer, new mother, strong-super-woman-who-attempts-crow-pose-after-pushing-out-a-baby.

On my mat, I’m all alone, like on a deserted island, while simultaneously being connected to the larger theme of life that makes anything coming up on a “post-baby-body Google search” a complete waste of time.

So, yes, I’d love to pretend that I’m perfectly content in my postpartum skin. I’d love, too, to imagine a world where women don’t feel some form of pressure to be fit. However, we live in a world where “post-baby body” is a completely normal catchphrase (and Google search).

But that’s not why I get on my mat.

I get on my mat because I want to feel good—and a huge part of feeling good is taking care of my body, because it houses my new-mother soul.

And I’m raising two girls now—I’m raising two little human beings who depend on my teachings for how they will look upon their own bodies some day.

I want them to know they can talk to me about concerns and insecurities, but I also want them to know that our bodies are so much more than numbers on a scale, or how strong or how flexible we are.

So, thank you, yoga practice for reminding me that I’ll never, ever “get my post-baby body back.”

Nope, it’s gone—because, actually, after I had my first daughter, I was healthier than ever before, having a brand-spankin’ new reason to get on my yoga mat every day, and her name was Gemma.

And now, as a new year dawns, my resolutions aren’t anything like, “lose that ten pounds of baby weight,” or “practice yoga every day.”

My new year’s resolutions are more like, “remember to breathe through the hurt and frustration,” and “fall in love with myself all over again every single day.”

And I do fall in love with myself every day.

Every day I fall in love with my willingness to embrace my flaws—especially the flaw of caring so much about my imperfections—and I fall in love with where I am right now.

And right now I’m a writing, blogging, stay-at-home-yoga mama machine who needs her yoga practice—and who is learning to love her body, without labels.

Photos: Author’s own.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post How Yoga Helped Me Accept That I’ll Never Have My Pre-Baby Body Back. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I didn’t make it to savasana today.

I always finish my yoga practice—even if I clip it short, I still have some form of closure, like child’s pose, savasana or seated meditation.

But today, I just got up. Because it finally settled into my tissues while I was in pigeon pose that sometimes, in life, there is no closure.

The other thing that washed over me in pigeon pose was how much I hate New Year’s Eve. The worst period of my life happened, at one point, during the week in between Christmas and New Year’s, and my body—my physical body—still loathes this time of year.

It doesn’t matter how much emotional or mental healing I’ve tried to do.

It doesn’t matter that, as a yoga practitioner, I’ve also worked at getting this wounded muscle memory far, far away from me; that, regardless, there are still some things that move through us and then stay inside of us forever.

Grief, terror, and tragic human experiences touch us, shake us, and, sometimes, maim us irrevocably.

I was in pigeon pose and I couldn’t see if my left shin was parallel to the top edge of my mat—by this point in my practice, the tears had formed a foggy cloud that altered my vision.

I settled into the pose by feeling my way in; by listening to my leg muscles; by shifting and undulating my spine.

And I let the tears rain down onto my sage green yoga mat.

I let myself release, not only into my yoga posture, but into the internal injury that I carried with me into a new year, despite my best intentions over these last several.

And as I listened to the teacher on the podcast I had been following ask me to lift my heart high in pigeon pose, I ignored him and instead bowed humbly over my leg—spent, tired and broken.

But the funny thing is that as the pools of salty tears collected on the green rubber, and as my heart acknowledged a pain that, seemingly, will never completely go away, I felt honest and I felt fresh for the first time in many months.

I turned off the podcast.

I turned off my little space heater, dutifully heating up the room.

I got up and I walked out, with tears collecting in the smile lines around my lips.

And I let it be okay that my yoga practice just ended, without a thoughtful completion. More, I let it be okay that I still have a knot in the back of my throat made up of un-shed tears and a scar-tissue-covered lump running over my heart.

I’ve decided, too, to be okay with where I am right now—with no real ending; with no perfect savasana.

Photo: Flickr/Felipe Ikehara; Author’s own.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post When We Must Be Okay without an Ending. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It’s kind of easy to explain how to practice yoga breath-work to other people.

It’s feasible to relay the benefits of “open” hips and limber leg muscles.

It’s possible, too, for anyone to learn how to flow through yoga asanas with modifications, the right tools and proper teaching.

But this morning when I talked with a friend, I realized what I couldn’t tell her—how yoga actually changed my life.

I called her right before my morning practice.

We spoke about her upcoming childbirth and she had questions for me since I had recently gone through my own second positive birthing experience.

She wanted to know about yoga breath and if that helped my labor. While I told her that surely it did impact it, the real benefits I couldn’t tell her about.

And then we hung up and I went into my little yoga room; where the spaceheater had been dutifully warming my space; where my body was about to move and flow and breathe—and as I held myself in my first postpartum bound side-angle pose, I realized exactly why my practice had helped me give birth naturally, and it was the same reason that my practice has completely revamped my life and myself.

And the reason, though simple, is huge when I think about it’s overall impact. Because life, for me at least, throws curve balls. I find myself in situations that I hadn’t planned for and I feel stressed and overwhelmed and, occasionally, depressed.

And then I get on my yoga mat.

I inhale and lift my arms—and my heart—skyward, I exhale and bow humbly towards the earth that always manages to hold me up, and I learn over and over again the lesson that has truly changed my life—that I can breathe through anything.

I can make it through one more labor contraction. I can breathe through one more challenging moment as a parent. I can inhale and exhale into, essentially, my life—I can breathe along with my life rather than through it.

My life has profoundly changed because yoga taught me to stay present and live moment by moment. More, it’s taught me that life is both more joyful and more manageable when I live this way.

So, as I spoke with my friend for a few minutes on the phone, listening to her concerns and sharing my own experiences in return, I was struck, later, as I stood tall in tree pose that this—the methodical breathing and the postures—are merely tools for what my practice actually is: a life-changing process of self-liberation.

Because I’m free of my past and I’m free of my future when I inhale into my present—yoga taught me this. My yoga practice has also taught me that I am capable of anything, one breath at a time.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

Photo: Joel Nilsson Nelson/Flickr; Dennis Yang/Flickr.

The post How Yoga Really Changes Your Life. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I was sitting on my little girl’s bed.

Decked out in pink and multiple pillows, she sat underneath the crook of my mommy-wing. Next to me, on the other side, was my newborn little girl.

I sat and looked at them—I just looked and sat—and I felt within my tender new-again mommy-heart this birth of contentment.

This swell of overwhelming joy crept up from underneath my once-again nursing breast. I was cloaked within this feeling of fulfillment and I remembered how so much lately I had felt cloaked in despair.

Cloaked in the reality of multiple dirty diapers and no sleep and frayed, exhausted nerves. And then, looking over at her on the one side and her on the other, I recognized what I have within my life—genuine love.

I’ve had a renewed self-motto lately: Choose love.

Because it’s easy to choose grumpiness.

It’s easy to choose cranky, bitter, held-hostage feelings of jealousy or comparison or general moodiness. I’ve recognized, too, that much of my moodiness stems from me not living from this place of present purity; like I felt right there, on that pink bed, with my two little daughters by my side.

Because it’s also easy to realize when life is sticky and uncomfortable; when relationships are challenged and strained; when people are unpleasant and unkind—but it’s equally simple to choose love.

And that’s it—I choose love.

I choose to let tears fall down my cheeks when my feelings are hurt.

I choose to let my heart be worn on my sleeve, even when it feels invisible to the world I inhabit.

I am not invisible.

I am loud. I am raging. I’m a swollen river beneath my nursing mother chest, and this river does occasionally overflow.

It overflows with murky, muddy waters that leak and seep hatred and sadness—but that’s not the real me, that flows like smooth, glassy, quiet water underneath these often overwhelming currents of life.

And I do choose love—it’s a choice.

I can choose to let my unexpressed feelings build and pile up until they come out all wrong and not how I really feel them anyways—with ugly words and angry glares—or I can choose to authentically share myself; to release myself from this human, flesh-draped cage and live moment to moment, free.

There’s this song that I grew up listening to called Puke + Cry by Dinosaur Jr. I feel like this song lately.

I feel this unburdened, deep need to release everything that I’ve held on tightly and unnecessarily to all of these years.

There’s another song, Glosoli by Sigur Ros, and its last two minutes make me want to Puke + Cry. It makes me want to let go; truly let go.

To me, letting go is something I do not do enough—it’s living moment by moment and from my fragile, wounded, strong, resilient soul instead of from false strength, fear and confinement.

How many of us live from this minute that just past or the one that’s happening in an hour and not from this second, this new second, this now second that’s right here, slapping us in the face to feel everything it has to offer.

Yet that’s the hard part: feeling everything; feeling it all.

Because for those of us who are sensitive, empathetic and emotional, there’s usually an awful lot to feel.

And it’s scary. It’s horrifying, really, to feel that these two little girls sitting on either side of me in a pink and pillow-laden bed are my world and that my world, tomorrow or the next day or the one after that, would be completely different if something happened to them.

But that’s life. And if I spend my now moments waiting for what might or could happen, I lose the magic that surrounds me every waking minute.

Still, for those of us (for all of us), who have ever felt true pain, there’s something sickly beautiful nestled discreetly—perversely—inside: this dark reality that beauty resides everywhere, even within an ugly, ugly truth.

And what I choose to observe and own is what winds up making my reality—I have the power to choose my own reality.

But life is hard. (No one who ever feels it all will tell it differently.)

It’s also gut-wrenchingly gorgeous when we let go and let life in; when we let it happen. (And this is what makes me want to puke + cry.)

And my tiny daughter plays joyously on the floor near me while my other, newer daughter swings softly close by—that moment that gave me such complete elation has already passed. I’m so glad I saw it and took it in, even though it’s gone.

Photo: Flickr/wilB

This article was first published by Be You Media Group.

The post How to Let Go and Choose Love. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I like a good drink.

It’s in my bio—my love of hoppy beer.

I also love a glass of wine after a long day and a shot of tequila on a Saturday afternoon.

But I’m pregnant. I can’t drink. Truthfully, my husband’s pints of hoppy ales make my stomach turn—and the smell of wine, just forget it.

So, last week when I had a horribly shitty day and my obvious end-of-a-bad-day/beginning-of-a-great-evening solution would have been an extremely generous glass of wine, I was left with, what the hell do I do with myself?

What do I do with my frazzled nerves and my overwhelmed heart and my tear-hair-out monkey mind?

I went to yoga class.

I walked in at 6:15 for the next class that evening and the studio manager sitting at the front desk was absolutely shocked to see me. Because I don’t take night classes.

No, at night I hole up with my family and cook and read books to my child and talk with my husband over stirring pots of yumminess on the stovetop—I do many things, but going to yoga class isn’t one of them.

But I’ve found this whole new me within my pregnant self—within this self who doesn’t drink alcohol—and I like her.

To be fair, I’ve been an emotional mess throughout this pregnancy.

My hormones have not been kind to my sensitive feelings and life didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to go easy on the pregnant lady. Actually, these last few months have been some of the most stressful of my life, and alcohol was not going to be there to help see me through it. Thank God.

Seriously, I just told my husband the other night—when I’m nearly positive that he wished I could drink—that I felt so blessed to have been forced through this intensely troublesome period of time without the convenience of drinking my beloved beer of choice (Hop Devil IPA, from where I used to live, if you really want to know).

It’s reminded me that even though I easily get anxious and even though life isn’t always fair in the amount of stressors it hands out at a time, I’m capable of breathing into and through life—just me, no alcohol necessary.

And I can honestly say that I’m sure I’ll have a beer or two periodically after my baby is born, but that I genuinely do plan on turning down alcohol more often than not.

Because that yoga class I took the other day, at 6:30 at night? It felt awesome—I felt awesome.

And I like me, even on my freaked-out-at-life days and especially when I could use a drink—because that’s the me who has some things to learn, things like patience and acceptance, surrender and how to practice real yoga.

And my real yoga begins when I walk out of that studio door and I get into my car and I’m forced to inhale and exhale and just experience my life.

And sometimes having a few glasses of wine while cooking dinner helps, but, more often, I only wake up thirsty at night and still have the same damn problems in the morning.

So I’m taking a pregnant pause to slow down and breathe into my life instead of glossing over it and, sure, some moments are better than others, but I want to be present for all of it.

Because if I hadn’t had that difficult day yesterday that caused loud tears to spill down my cheeks, then I wouldn’t have had my little girl come up to me and, being extra silly, make me laugh to cheer me up.

In life, we have bad times, but there’s nearly always good right there with it, if we can open our teary eyes enough to witness it.

And maybe for you it’s not alcohol but exercise (I’ve certainly run miles of life’s challenges away in my past too) or sex or something else that temporarily numbs our human experiences.

But what if, for one evening, we all paused before going into auto-pilot and chose a different way to deal with life?

What if for one day we chose to feel it all and breathe into the pain and into the joy and we stayed present, no matter how hard it was?

Well, maybe, we would find ourselves doing that the next night too, because life was actually easier when we dealt head-on with our burdens and emotions and thoughts.

And maybe every day could just be living our lives—loving our lives and ourselves—one breath, one moment at a time.

Photo: Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr.

This article first appeared on elephant journal.

The post What Happened When I Took a Breath Instead of a Drink. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It’s one of those weekends where my soul feels deeply the need to recharge and replenish.

My skin feels thirsty for the sun’s warm kisses, my face hungry for touches from my husband’s hands, my arms achy for my daughter’s tiny body to be embraced warmly in a hug.

I feel physically my emotional need to slow down, to breathe and simply to be.

So yesterday I went to a hot, sweaty flowing yoga class.

I let my legs hold me up powerfully in my warrior poses, my hips release yesterday’s burdens in restorative hip-openers and my heart be lifted skyward in my backbends.

I sat with my discomfort at the beginning of class, when my bra irritated me and my pants slipped down in just the wrong spot. I honored my need to wipe sweat from my forehead before it went up my nose in downward facing dog. And I worked through my inner tensions and physically-held stresses until I sat cross-legged, spent and bowing forward, humbly speaking the word, “Namaste.”

And today I cuddled my little girl as we watched cartoons in bed on the laptop.

I bent over the top of her head and kissed her reddish brown curls lightly as I whispered the words, “I love you.”

I smoothed my fingertips down the baby-soft skin of her shoulder as she sat sheltered underneath the crook of my protective mommywing.

I snatched my husband as he walked down the hallway to shower off mud from mountain biking.

I ushered his thumbs to my neck as he held me tightly against his chest, and I felt the letting go in the space just between there and my shoulder blades, where my heart has felt a little battered and slightly bruised and injured.

And I realized later as I felt the wind in my hair on a family drive in our recently restored twenty-plus-year-old Toyota truck, that restoration doesn’t have to involve intense steps like sanding, re-polishing and a fresh coat of paint. No, sometimes all it takes is a little attention and the intention to love.

My soul felt tired and needy and empty. I thought, initially, that I might need weeks of recovery and extra-special care.

But, as it turned out, the basic act of paying attention to my weariness—and my cravings for human connections, sensations and love—began to heal me from the inside the moment I took that first step down the seemingly daunting road to rejuvenation.

So, today, as I admitted that my recent hard work and personal devotions have left me feeling slightly overwhelmed, I decided to take a step forward into my neediness instead of retreating into loneliness.

And, sometimes, the sun on our skin, the movement of our bodies with our breath, and the soft kisses from someone we love are all it takes to make us feel invigorated, new and whole.

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Photo: Lady May Pamintuan/Flickr.

This article was first shared on elephant journal.

The post How I Recharged My Soul. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Nope, it’s not that one.

Or this one.

Or even this one.

Actually, it might be this:

Or this:

Or maybe even this:

Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.

What does that mean?

It means that we’re only practicing asanas—from “simpler” poses like child’s to trickier ones like headstand—because we’re trying to remain in the moment by working our bodies and our balance, and we’re expending our energy and expanding our flexibility in order to be more fully present during meditation or even at the upcoming staff meeting at work.

Practicing yoga does not have to be on a mat.

You can practice the cessation of the fluctuations of our minds when you’re driving—you’re thinking about driving.

You can practice when you’re riding a bike or merely focusing on the sensations of your breath as it comes in and out of your nostrils. If this sounds easy, I guarantee that you’ve never tried practicing “real” yoga.

Ceasing what many of us call the “monkey mind” (our constantly churning thoughts that are floating through our heads) is absolutely not easy—which is where and why asana does come in.

On the other hand, I don’t know about you, but holding a tiny baby—feeling her warm, soft cheek against your chest; smelling her soft, sweet scent as your nose presses the top of her tender head—this can be practicing yoga. I’ve never experienced yoga so well in my life like when I hold my daughter.

Also, this might not be quite what we’re looking for, but feeling an emotion—really digging in and being with your hurt, frustration, jealousy—this can be practicing yoga in the sense that you aren’t shoving your feelings aside and pretending to feel something “easier” like anger.

“We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.”

~ Jim Morrison

So yoga doesn’t have to look like this:

Or this:

Instead, it can look like this:

(That’s my husband “pond jumping,” by the way—he’s better at practicing yoga than I am and he doesn’t even own a yoga mat, just a few different bikes.)

Because yoga has nothing to do with a sticky mat—that’s merely a tool to help us achieve this mental clarity, peace and restfulness.

How do you practice yoga?

For me, I’ll admit, sometimes my yoga resembles this:

More often than not, though, I would describe my perfect yoga practice like this:

or this:

And I’m certainly not suggesting that motherhood or parenthood is how we all practice yoga—obviously it’s not.

Maybe for you, it’s cuddling your furchild or it could be any number of other things too.

All I’m suggesting is that we keep in mind, when we do finally step onto our yoga mats, that our practice doesn’t call on us to be self-righteous or perfect, “advanced” or anything else besides what we already are—just being with and experiencing this now moment.

And this new now moment.

And this one.

Namaste.

Photos: Author’s own; imgur; Jillian/Flickr; Steven Depolo/Flickr; Kevin Dinkel/Flickr; Premnath Thirumalaisamy/Flickr; eren {sea+prairie}/Flickr; Chris Waits/Flickr.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post The Coolest Yoga Pose Ever. {Photos} first appeared on Jennifer S. White.