Confession: I Don’t Like Yoga

I have to thank my friend, Esther, for this post because without realizing it she made me say this out loud, thus finally accepting it myself. I DON’T LIKE YOGA!

I’ve been doing Yoga and claiming to like it on and off for about 11 years. When I was 25 I became obsessed with working out. I’d hit the gym 6 days a week for 2 hours or more. On my “day off” I’d do a Power Yoga video in my living room. It took major willpower to do that video even once a week. In those days I used Yoga to improve my strength and fitness, I had no idea there was anything spiritual about it. Even the script the instructors used went over my head. In the beginning it was all about the BODY.

A couple of years later, I came across a book called Yoga for Wellness. My knees had been giving me trouble from all the running I’d done during the body obsession phase and I decided to use Yoga to heal them. I didn’t really do the routines long enough to get the benefits as I just couldn’t stick with it. But still I claimed to like Yoga.

When I got pregnant, I bought a prenatal Yoga video and did it for the first couple of months. I thought it would help me have a natural delivery. It might have if I’d kept at it, but I didn’t.

Eventually I embarked on this “spiritual journey” and realized that Yoga is a tool for reaching enlightenment. After learning that OF COURSE I continued to like Yoga. I mean who doesn’t want some enlightenment? I started taking classes at the Y and they weren’t half bad. As long as I didn’t have to touch my toes (because it seems I’m the only human being who CAN’T for the life of her touch her toes), I almost enjoyed it. Eventually I started attending a once a year retreat at Amrit Yoga Institute. During the retreat we do morning Yoga for three mornings. It was there I began to realize, Yoga is kind of like torture. I mean seriously, I can’t even touch my toes, how am I supposed to do all that other stuff? At the first retreat my friend said “I was really wishing we’d do more Yoga.” Thinking back, I might have actually nodded in agreement.

It’s been 4 years since my first retreat at Amrit. I’ve still been claiming to like Yoga. I bought a 10 session pass at a Yoga studio in town. I’ve used 4 passes. I stare at the clock through the entire class. I jet to the door when it is over. I can’t get out of there fast enough, yet if you read my FB information page it might say that Yoga is one of my hobbies. Heck, I might have listed Yoga as one of the things I like to do in my Bio on THIS website.

But the other night I was with my friend Esther and she said “I hate Yoga!” And just like that it poured out of me “Oh my gosh, I hate Yoga too!”

It is boring. It is painful. I’m terrible at it. And…in all the time I’ve spent doing Yoga, I am not one speck closer to enlightenment because of it.

Somehow I’ve let myself believe for years now that healthy, spiritual people do Yoga and dammit I want to be a healthy, spiritual person. So I’ve lied to myself about how I feel about Yoga and I’ve beat myself up for not doing it more, for not having a regular Yoga practice. The truth is doing Yoga is no different than going to a Baptist church, it works really well for a lot of people but it just doesn’t do it for me!

It feels really great to let go of this idea that I’m supposed to like and do Yoga. It’s making room for me focus on the things I actually do love that can feed my body and soul. Now I just have to figure out what to do with those 6 passes I have left.