When the Mat Turned Into a Mirror

First time I did yoga was freshman year, every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 AM in my university gym. After each 30-minute class my spine felt stronger, my posture taller, but my mind? Unmoved. It was stretching with nicer music, nothing more.

Fast-forward to junior year, exactly two years later. I met the ocean for the first time. I got up at 6 AM to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic, a soft reminder that I was alone in a beautiful place, away from home and humming with longing. I rolled out my mat on the sand, started my vinyasa flow, and suddenly every thought dropped away. All that existed was the shake in my legs, the breeze against my frozen skin, the sun warming my bones. The waves sounded like a distant dream. That vinyasa was the moment I fell in love with yoga, because it hushed the noise in my head and told me I could breathe right through it.

For the past two months I’ve been consistent. No, I haven’t become the strongest human on earth or achingly flexible. Outwardly I look the same. Yet something is different.

Each trikonasana now feels like grounding. At first my side body screams, then I realize it isn’t pain, it’s space. My arm reaches for the sky, my chest lifts me, my legs steady me. My body might look unchanged, but with every pose I line up a bit more cleanly with the world. The noise fades because I can breathe through the shakes, because I feel expansive in every direction (thank you, Down Dog app).

One morning I wake up and my core is solid, those chaturangas that once flattened me now glide. It’s gratifying, but not instant; I trained for this. The very next week everything falls apart: balance shot, arms jelly, legs useless. So what? I’m sad for a minute, then I get it. That small practice I do before work, the best part of my day, is the day now. Yoga was never about raw strength or perfect form; it was always about making my mind stronger. And it’s working.

Am I suddenly wise? Not even close. But yoga keeps teaching me:

• You fall down; you get up.

• The hardest poses soften when you breathe instead of chase.

• Listening to your body matters more than forcing it into shapes.

Yoga is the most beautiful thing that’s happened to me, and you won’t believe it until you try. I still have bad days, still get angry, still cry, still miss ex-people. Yoga doesn’t fix everything; it invites me to surrender what my body’s been clutching. One day all of it will fold into a larger story.

Most of all, yoga teaches acceptance. I’m not wise today or tomorrow, but I’m getting there. I’m learning to temper anger, to feel every inch of skin when the breeze touches it, to savor my time and energy. I started just letting things go, I finally heard my own pleas to leave toxic spaces. You can’t force growth by begging someone else to grow. So I leave that behind and turn inward, breathing with the part of me that’s been waiting patiently to stretch.

And that - every rise, every wobble, every breath - is the journey.