How Yoga Helped Me Stretch Out of My Comfort Zone
If you had told me 20 years ago that I would not only attend a yoga festival one day, but that I would actually enjoy it, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Back then, the mere thought of going to a yoga class made me feel anxious. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t flexible. All that “breathe into the universe” talk felt very off-putting to me. I couldn’t imagine ever enjoying it.
And yet. I had headaches. More often than not, I felt uneasy. I didn’t sleep well.
So after listening to my friends go on and on about how great yoga is and how much it could help me, I finally gave it a go.
I started with the easiest class I could find—a super simple yin yoga class, where you just hold basic poses for a while. And guess what?
It actually made me feel better.
It was mostly physical at first. Getting my body to work, feeling my muscles stretch, taking deep breaths. But over time, I started to see mental benefits, too: I noticed how yoga helped me quiet my anxious mind and be more in the moment.
Little by little, I worked my way up from the simple stretches to a level 1, then to a level 2 class.
Ten years later, yoga was a regular part of my life. The more time I took for my practice, the easier it was for me to be the person I wanted to be in the world: loving, productive, present.
Despite all that, going to a yoga festival still seemed like a stretch. Even though I’d been practicing yoga for almost 10 years, making the leap from 1-2 classes a week to spending multiple days in a row going to 3 classes a day felt like too much.
On top of that, I didn’t think I’d relate to the “spiritual” crowd, and the idea of moving so slowly and focusing on my breath all day brought up a lot of anxiety.
What was happening? As I wrestled with the idea of going to the festival, I started to recognize the pattern in my head: it was my survival mind, telling me that I couldn’t do it. (Because our survival mind will always tell us that we can’t).
According to our survival mind, it’s safer for things to stay as they are—so it will always resist moving forward and going beyond our comfort zone.
The danger in listening to our survival mind is that it keeps us stuck in the same place and prevents us from growing.
This is why, when we’re feeling stagnated or depressed, one of the best things we can do is change our environment. Get up and move. Get a change of scenery. Whether that means leaving our bedroom to go to the park, taking a drive out of town for a day – or signing up to a yoga festival, even if it feels kind of impossible.
Which is exactly what I did.
And it was incredible.
I spent three days doing yoga in the epic scenery around Mammoth Lakes. I never imagined how good it would feel to be outside, to connect with other people who were committed to growing and getting stronger. I left replenished and full of energy.
These days, whenever I feel myself resisting doing something new and challenging, I think back to that yoga festival.
I remember how spending all that energy and money to get out of my comfort zone paid itself back ten times over. I remember how investing in myself helps me be more focused, productive, and loving. And I remember how, every time I do something like this, in small or in big ways, it gets a little easier to find my way back to that quiet, loving place in my mind.
Do you want to learn more about how to realign your relationship with your emotions? In my book, Life Launch, I offer clear, easy-to-apply strategies for coping with big emotions and bringing more calm into your life. Download a sample chapter here. Bonus: Watch my TEDx talk on anxiety here.