Dear yoga,

It’s been two years since we properly met. Sure I’d seen you around before and we even had a brief dalliance in my late teens, but nothing has been as long lasting as this.

Two years ago I walked into that studio, a million miles from the woman that I am today. A tenser, scared, hurting version, who had yet to un-peel the many layers that had been ever so carefully placed over the years.

I have never felt the way I do when I am with you. You who has given me so much and shown me the world.

How to be strong and yet surrender. How to embrace the uniqueness of every single moment, at any given time, in any given way and see it is just so. How to slow down, but also how to amp it up and meet my boundary and see how far the edge actually is. To ALWAYS COME BACK TO THE BREATH. How to have patience and evolve without losing a sense of play and giving it a go. How to work opposing forces and feel that perfect suspension. How to sweat and work for it. But most importantly, for me, how to truly love the only home I will have forever.

From a girl who had never felt comfortable in my own body, you gave me somewhere to feel expanded and at ease. The dedication and determination to keep digging deeper, to keep going and growing and flowing. To feel it all, and be totally OK with it.

After about my fourth time, I remember barely being able to keep tears back, such was the release, the movement of something I had been holding onto for years, for my entire life so far. And I knew that even without knowing, I had found IT.

You gave me my life and for that I am more thankful and grateful than I think even I will comprehend.

You have taught me the importance of occupying my own space, of not finding anything in the past that couldn’t be all consumingly loved in the present and bear witness to that transformation.

To not worry about what may be, but to meet each moment with fresh curiosity because it will be the only version of that moment I will ever have. Indeed it is all we ever have.

From the bottom of my heart, I love you.

Thank you for bringing me back to life.

NAMASTE