After days of deliberation, the jury could not unanimously agree on whether she was criminally responsible for killing her three children. Her defense argued that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors argued that she understood what she was doing.

I am not going to tell you whether Lindsay Clancy is guilty or not guilty. I wasn’t in that jury room. I didn’t examine her. I don’t know what was happening inside her mind.

But I do know something about postpartum mental illness.

I lived it.

I experienced postpartum depression.

I was later diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.

And before we go any further, I need to make something very, very clear:

Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are NOT interchangeable.

PPP is not simply “really bad postpartum depression.” They are different illnesses, and neither diagnosis automatically means that a mother wants to hurt her baby.

I wouldn’t wish postpartum depression on my worst enemy.

Postpartum psychosis?

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I was young when I had my first child. I was a kid raising a kid, and I was terrified.

During my postpartum depression, I experienced intrusive thoughts involving my baby. Not desires. Not plans. Not things I secretly wanted to do.

Thoughts.

Once, I was carrying my newborn with me to check the mail. The swimming pool was right next to the mailboxes, and suddenly a thought entered my head:

If I threw him into the pool, would he swim or would he sink?

I had absolutely no intention of finding out.

I didn’t want to throw him into the pool.

I didn’t want to hurt my baby.

The thought itself horrified me.

But how exactly was I supposed to tell someone that?

How do you look another human being in the eye and say, “My brain just showed me something horrifying involving my baby,” when you’re terrified that the moment those words leave your mouth, somebody will decide you’re dangerous?

I was terrified of my then-husband finding out what was happening inside my head. I was terrified of my parents finding out.

And I wanted to run.

Gods, I wanted to run.

There were so many times I wanted to pack up my son, get as far away from my husband and my parents as I possibly could, and simply start over somewhere nobody knew us.

I was scared.

I was overwhelmed.

I was a kid raising a kid.

And here is the part of the maternal mental-health conversation that makes me angry:

People love to say, “Ask for help.”

I did.

I sought treatment for postpartum depression.

Before my provider prescribed Paxil, I told her that my family had a history of reacting badly to it. She prescribed it anyway and told me that we would keep an eye on me.

So I kept going to my appointments.

I told her I wasn’t getting better.

I told her I was getting worse.

My dose was increased.

I came back.

I told her I was still getting worse.

My dose was increased again.

Then I accidentally left my medication at home when I went to Los Angeles for a three-day weekend with my parents. We lived in San Diego at the time.

And during those days without it, I felt so much better.

When I came home, I went back to my provider and told her. I convinced her that we needed to change my medication.

She agreed.

But she also told me that if I didn’t admit myself to the psychiatric ward at the Naval Hospital, she was going to contact CPS.

So I went.

The emergency department wasn’t finding a legitimate reason to admit me.

I was so frightened of what would happen if I wasn’t admitted that I lied about my symptoms to get myself hospitalized.

About 36 hours later, they sent me home because they saw no reason to keep me there.

I called my provider around 12:30 to tell her I was being discharged.

Around 2:30, police and CPS came to check on me.

My family panicked.

Initially, I voluntarily placed my son with my brother and sister-in-law while everything was sorted out.

About a month later, on my father’s birthday—the day my son turned six months old—we went to court.

CPS formally removed my baby from my custody.

So when we tell struggling mothers, “Don’t be afraid. Tell somebody. Ask for help,” I need us to understand something:

Sometimes she is afraid because the thing she is afraid of can actually happen.

That does NOT mean mothers experiencing postpartum mental illness shouldn’t seek treatment.

It means we have to do a hell of a lot better once they do.

“Ask for help” is not a maternal mental-health policy.

Someone has to listen after she asks.

Someone has to hear her when she says the treatment isn’t working.

Someone has to take her seriously when she says she is getting worse.

Someone has to understand the difference between an unwanted intrusive thought that horrifies her and an intention to hurt someone.

Someone has to understand that sometimes a person discloses a frightening thought precisely because she doesn’t want it.

And we have to create systems in which mothers can tell the truth about what is happening inside their heads without wondering whether honesty itself will destroy their families.

Because losing custody didn’t magically make me well.

My mental health deteriorated further.

I was eventually diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.

I don’t know exactly when the psychosis began. Looking back, I believe it started after the formal loss of custody of my son. There are things from that period that make much more sense to me in light of the diagnosis.

The paranoia.

Thinking that became significantly more disorganized than was normal for me.

Impulsive decisions that I look back on now and cannot imagine making if I had been in my right mind.

And sleep.

Oh, gods, the sleep.

I slept so much.

My suicidal thoughts became much worse after I lost custody of my son.

And still, people could look at me and think I was fine.

My best friend did.

And when I say “best friend,” I don’t mean someone who barely knew me.

Tammy and I had been roommates in Navy “A” school. She knew me. She knew my then-husband. She had been supposed to be part of our wedding. This woman knew me better than most people did.

And during this period, she genuinely thought I didn’t care that I had lost custody of my baby.

Why?

Because she watched me leave visits with him composed.

When she finally said that she thought I didn’t care, my then-husband looked at her in shock.

“You know Di. You honestly think she didn’t care?”

Because he knew what happened after we got home.

I would make it through the visit.

I would make it through saying goodbye.

I would maintain my composure in front of my brother, his wife, my best friend and, most importantly, my baby.

Then I would get home.

I would go straight to my bedroom, throw myself onto my bed, and sob into my pillow for an hour.

I wasn’t cold.

I wasn’t okay.

I was a mother maintaining composure in front of her child.

We cannot determine how sick, frightened, or devastated a mother is by how well she performs composure in front of us.

Sometimes composure isn’t evidence that someone is okay.

Sometimes it is evidence that she has decided this is not the place where she is allowed to fall apart.

My best friend knew me better than almost anyone, and even she couldn’t see what was happening behind my composure.

So perhaps we need to stop pretending we can determine the severity of someone’s suffering simply by looking at them.

There is another moment from that period that has never left me.

After the hospitalization, my medication was changed.

On the first day of the new medication, my then-husband had been watching me for a while.

Finally, he looked at me and said:

“I have the woman I fell in love with back.”

I had been that bad.

I am deliberately not claiming that a particular medication caused everything that happened to me. I can’t establish that, and I won’t pretend that I can.

I can tell you what I experienced.

I can tell you what I reported.

I can tell you that I repeatedly said I was getting worse.

I can tell you that I felt dramatically better during those accidental days without that medication.

I can tell you that the person who lived with me saw such an enormous difference after my medication was changed that he told me he finally had the woman he fell in love with back.

And I can tell you that I was ultimately diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.

That is my story.

The Lindsay Clancy case is not my story.

I will not say, “I could have been her.”

I don’t know that.

I will not use the deaths of Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy to make a dramatic point about my own life.

Three children are dead.

Their lives matter.

Their father and everyone who loved them has suffered an unimaginable loss.

We can grieve those children while still demanding compassion and competent care for people experiencing severe postpartum mental illness.

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Caring about children’s safety does not require us to stop caring about their mothers.

My son deserved to be safe.

So did his mother.

Those statements were never supposed to be in opposition.

And that is why I am talking about Lindsay Clancy’s case today.

Not because I can tell you what was happening inside her mind.

Not because I can give you the verdict that the jury itself could not unanimously reach.

I’m talking about it because maternal mental illness should not become important only after something horrific happens.

A mother should not have to die for us to take her suicidal thoughts seriously.

A child should not have to die for us to take a mother’s psychiatric symptoms seriously.

A family should not have to be torn apart before we ask whether a struggling mother received the care she actually needed.

And a mother should not have to prove that she is falling apart by falling apart in front of us.

The absence of death is not evidence that everyone was okay.

I survived.

My son survived.

We were not okay.

My story didn’t become national news.

There weren’t reporters outside the courthouse. Strangers didn’t debate my mental state on television. Nobody turned what happened to my family into a headline.

But it was serious before I was hospitalized.

It was serious before CPS knocked on my door.

It was serious before I lost custody.

It was serious before I became suicidal.

It was serious before I was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.

I was already sick when I was simply a frightened young mother trying desperately to hold herself together.

So stop asking what a suffering mother is supposed to look like.

Stop assuming that because she is functioning, she is fine.

Stop assuming that because she can smile, speak coherently, care for her baby, attend an appointment, or hold herself together long enough to walk out the front door, you know what happens after that door closes.

Listen to what she is telling you.

And when she tells you that something is wrong, keep listening.

For the love of all things holy, unholy, and everything in between:

Stop waiting until maternal mental illness becomes tragedy before we decide it was serious.

“Inhale, reach your arms overhead.”

Except you’re still exhaling.

“Exhale, fold forward.”

Except you finally got around to that inhale.

And suddenly you’re half a breath behind the teacher, the rest of the class appears to be moving in perfect synchronized harmony, and you’re trying to figure out whether you’re supposed to finish breathing, skip half an inhale, or somehow catch up with everyone else.

Here’s another option:

Keep breathing.

Seriously.

Finish the breath you’re already taking.

Your lungs do not know they’re behind.

There is no tiny yoga timekeeper standing beside your mat with a clipboard marking:

Di missed the inhale. Minus three enlightenment points.

When we practice yoga in a group setting, breath cues can be incredibly useful. They can help establish rhythm. They can bring awareness to the relationship between movement and breath. They can help us explore how different movements feel when paired with an inhale or an exhale.

But a cue is an invitation.

It is not a command.

And your body doesn’t suddenly stop belonging to you because someone at the front of the room said, “Inhale.”

The Teacher Is Breathing in a Different Body

This sounds painfully obvious when I say it out loud, but sometimes yoga needs painfully obvious reminders:

Your teacher does not have your lungs.

Your teacher doesn’t have your rib cage.

Your teacher isn’t moving through your body.

Your teacher doesn’t have your respiratory rate, your cardiovascular capacity, your mobility, your energy level, or your experience of this particular moment.

And yet group yoga classes sometimes unintentionally create the impression that everyone’s breath should operate on exactly the same schedule.

“Inhale.”

Everybody inhales.

“Exhale.”

Everybody exhales.

Except bodies aren’t metronomes.

Even if twenty people begin an inhale at precisely the same moment, that doesn’t mean those twenty bodies naturally want the same length of breath.

One person may have finished comfortably while another still has plenty of inhale available.

Neither is doing it wrong.

Breath and Movement Can Dance Without Choreography

There are reasons certain movements are commonly paired with certain phases of breathing.

Opening and lifting movements often feel intuitive with an inhale.

Folding or contracting movements often pair comfortably with an exhale.

Try them and you may discover that the pairing feels wonderful.

But “commonly paired” is not the same thing as required.

Sometimes movement and breath fall together beautifully.

Sometimes they’re two drunk friends on the dance floor who are absolutely convinced they’re doing the same choreography.

Let them dance.

One of the things we’re exploring this month through Prāṇāyāma is the relationship we have with our breath.

And relationship requires listening.

If maintaining the teacher’s breathing cadence means forcing your breath, rushing your inhale, holding when you don’t want to hold, or feeling like you’re chasing the class...

the relationship has stopped being collaborative.

The cue has become more important than the body receiving it.

That’s backwards.

Finish Your Damn Breath

So here’s something I want you to try the next time you’re practicing and your breath doesn’t match the cue:

Notice.

That’s it.

Maybe the teacher says “inhale,” and you’re exhaling.

Finish your exhale.

Then inhale.

Maybe everybody else is already moving.

That’s okay.

Maybe you move on your own breath instead.

Maybe you take an extra breath before transitioning.

Maybe you stop coordinating breath and movement entirely for a little while and simply breathe naturally.

You haven’t fallen behind.

There is no behind.

There is only the breath happening in your body and the movement available to you in this moment.

Your Breath Is Still Yours

I love breath cues.

I use them when I teach.

But I never want the people practicing with me to mistake my invitation for authority over their bodies.

I can suggest an inhale.

You decide whether you take it.

I can invite a longer exhale.

You decide whether that feels good.

I can offer a Prāṇāyāma technique.

You decide whether you practice it.

And if your body says, Nope, we’re just breathing normally today?

Beautiful.

That’s information.

That’s awareness.

That’s yoga.

Prāṇāyāma isn’t about proving that you can make your breath obey.

It can be an opportunity to become curious about the relationship between breath, body, awareness, and energy.

And sometimes the most yogic response to:

“Inhale, arms rise...”

is:

Hang on. I’m still fucking exhaling.

Finish your breath.

We’ll meet you when you get there.

You were never behind.

Sad?

Let’s fix that.

Angry?

Regulate.

Anxious?

Breathe.

Overwhelmed?

Ground yourself.

Frustrated?

Journal about it.

Grieving?

Here’s a meditation.

And none of those tools are inherently bad.

Sometimes they’re exactly what we need.

But I wonder what happens when every uncomfortable human emotion immediately becomes a problem requiring an intervention.

What if sometimes…

Read more

Not because you failed to manage your schedule correctly.

Not because you were supposed to be productive but got distracted and now need to forgive yourself.

I mean deliberately.

Joyfully.

Perhaps even irresponsibly.

Waste some fucking time.

Do something inefficient.

Take the long way because it’s prettier.

Read something that teaches you absolutely nothing.

Make something you have no intention of selling.

Watch the birds.

Rewatch the show you’ve already seen enough times to quote half the dialogue.

Take a nap that has no strategic relationship whatsoever to tomorrow’s productivity.

Sit outside.

Play a game.

Pet the dog.

Pet the cat, assuming the cat has authorized this interaction.

Spend twenty minutes following some ridiculous curiosity down a rabbit hole and emerge knowing an enormous amount about a subject that will never appear on your résumé.

Do something badly.

Do something slowly.

Do something that will never become content.

Do something that does not improve you.

Because I think we’ve forgotten that we’re allowed to have lives containing things that accomplish absolutely fucking nothing.

And I think remembering might be important.

We Have Optimized Almost Everything

There is a best way to wake up.

A best time to drink coffee.

A best morning routine.

A best way to exercise.

A best way to eat.

A best way to work.

A best way to take breaks.

A best way to breathe.

A best way to sleep.

A best evening routine.

There are books.

Podcasts.

Apps.

Courses.

Videos.

Newsletters.

Experts.

Influencers.

Entire industries devoted to helping us squeeze slightly more efficiency from the ordinary processes of being alive.

And some of that information is useful.

I’m not opposed to learning things.

I rather enjoy learning things.

But there’s something unsettling about treating an entire human life as a system awaiting optimization.

Because optimization always requires an objective.

You optimize for something.

So what are we optimizing our lives for?

Productivity?

Longevity?

Fitness?

Focus?

Income?

Efficiency?

Calm?

Performance?

What if none of those things is the central purpose of being alive?

Efficiency Is Not a Universal Good

Efficiency is wonderful when you’re trying to accomplish something efficiently.

Revolutionary statement, I know.

If I need to complete a repetitive task, I would generally prefer it not take nine hours.

If there’s a simpler way to do something tedious, fantastic.

But we’ve allowed efficiency to escape the workplace and become a moral virtue.

Taking longer becomes wasteful.

Doing nothing becomes lazy.

Resting becomes unproductive.

Wandering becomes unfocused.

Changing your mind becomes inconsistency.

Having a hobby you’re bad at becomes wasted potential.

We begin asking every part of our lives:

What does this produce?

And if the answer is nothing measurable, we become suspicious.

The Hobby Must Become a Hustle

This one drives me particularly fucking crazy.

You discover you enjoy making something.

Someone immediately says:

You should sell those!

You bake?

Sell it.

Paint?

Sell it.

Crochet?

Sell it.

Read tarot?

Monetize it.

Write?

Publish it.

Take photographs?

Start a business.

Know something interesting?

Create a course.

We have turned:

You are good at something

into:

You should extract economic value from it.

And that sounds complimentary.

Sometimes it even creates wonderful opportunities.

But it also quietly suggests that being good at something without monetizing it is a waste.

What if you make something beautiful and give it away?

What if you keep it?

What if you make something absolutely hideous and have the time of your fucking life doing it?

What if nobody ever sees it?

What if the only return on your investment is:

I enjoyed those two hours.

Is that not enough?

We Have Monetized Attention

It isn’t just what we make.

Our attention itself has become economically valuable.

Every platform wants it.

Every notification wants it.

Every algorithm wants it.

Watch.

Click.

React.

Post.

Respond.

Scroll.

Consume.

Our boredom has become a market opportunity.

There was once a time when waiting for something meant...

waiting.

Standing in line.

Sitting in a doctor’s office.

Waiting for a friend.

Waiting for food.

You might look around.

Think.

People-watch.

Stare into space.

Now we can fill practically every unoccupied second.

And because we can, increasingly we feel like we should.

Silence becomes empty space awaiting content.

What Happened to Staring Out the Window?

I am serious.

When did staring out the window become an activity requiring justification?

You sit.

You look.

Maybe something interesting happens.

Maybe absolutely nothing happens.

There is no outcome.

No metric.

No streak.

No achievement badge.

No measurable return.

And yet these strange little spaces matter.

The moments when attention is allowed to wander.

When we’re not being instructed.

Entertained.

Educated.

Sold something.

Improved.

Sometimes the mind simply goes somewhere.

Sometimes nowhere.

We’ve become so accustomed to occupying ourselves that unoccupied attention can feel uncomfortable.

But perhaps discomfort doesn’t mean the space needs filling.

Even Rest Has Become Optimized

Rest should have escaped this.

It did not.

We have sleep scores.

Recovery scores.

Ideal nap durations.

Optimal sleep temperatures.

Perfect evening routines.

Advice about when to stop eating, when to stop looking at screens, when to dim the lights, when to take supplements, when to breathe, when to stretch.

Again, some of that may be useful.

But notice what can happen psychologically.

Sleep stops being something the body does.

It becomes another performance.

Did I sleep correctly?

Did I get enough deep sleep?

Did I recover enough?

Why is my score lower?

What did I do wrong?

We can wake feeling perfectly decent and be informed by a device that apparently we failed the night’s assignment.

Congratulations.

You were unconscious incorrectly.

And Then We Optimized the Breath

Of course we did.

Breath is measurable.

Controllable, to an extent.

Trainable.

Marketable.

There are optimal breathing rates.

Techniques.

Devices.

Apps.

Programs.

Protocols.

And within yoga, there are longstanding Prāṇāyāma traditions that deserve substantially more respect and context than simply being folded into the modern optimization industry.

This month, as I’ve been exploring Prāṇāyāma, I’ve kept returning to the ordinary breath.

The one nobody is optimizing.

The breath happening while you’re distracted.

While you’re cooking.

While you’re reading.

While you’re laughing.

While you’re asleep.

The breath that does not exist to improve your performance.

It exists because you’re alive.

There is something beautifully resistant about that.

Not Every Breath Needs a Purpose

Take a breath.

Not a deep one.

Don’t make it special.

Just let whatever breath was going to happen happen.

There.

What did it accomplish?

It didn’t necessarily make you calmer.

It didn’t increase your productivity.

It probably didn’t heal your trauma.

It did not manifest abundance.

It did not raise your vibration.

It did not make you a better employee.

It did not unlock your highest self.

You breathed.

That’s all.

And perhaps we need more things we’re allowed to experience without demanding that they produce something.

What If You Didn’t Have to Become Better?

This is where optimization culture gets its hooks into us.

It offers a future version of ourselves.

Healthier.

Calmer.

More organized.

More disciplined.

More focused.

More productive.

More attractive.

More spiritual.

More healed.

More successful.

The optimized self waits just beyond the next routine.

The next practice.

The next habit.

The next purchase.

The next breakthrough.

And wanting to grow isn’t wrong.

I hope I’m still learning until the day I die.

But there’s a difference between:

I want to grow

and:

I must continuously improve in order to justify my existence.

One allows the present self to participate.

The other treats the present self as raw material.

You Are Not a Draft

You are not the beta version of some future human being.

Your current life isn’t merely preparation for the better one you’re going to live once you’ve finally figured everything out.

This is it.

This Tuesday.

This Saturday morning.

This ordinary afternoon.

This conversation.

This cup of coffee.

This walk.

This ache.

This laugh.

This stupid television episode.

This moment when the dog is lying directly where you need to walk.

This is the life.

Yes, there will hopefully be more of it.

Yes, things will change.

Yes, we will change.

But the future doesn’t retroactively make the present valuable.

This moment is already part of your life.

Even if nothing impressive happens in it.

Pleasure Does Not Need to Be Productive

This shouldn’t be radical.

But apparently it is.

You’re allowed to enjoy something because it feels good.

That’s the whole argument.

Pleasure does not need to improve cardiovascular fitness.

Increase cognitive performance.

Build social capital.

Develop a skill.

Advance your career.

Generate income.

Become content.

Teach you a lesson.

It can simply be pleasant.

And I think there is something deeply human about protecting experiences from usefulness.

A song that exists because you love it.

A ridiculous object that makes you happy.

A tradition that makes no sense to anyone outside your household.

A food that reminds you of someone.

A book you’ve read eight times.

A joke that isn’t particularly funny but makes the right person laugh every fucking time.

These things don’t optimize a life.

They make one.

Relationships Are Spectacularly Inefficient

Love is not efficient.

Friendship is not efficient.

Community is not efficient.

People repeat stories.

Conversations wander.

Someone needs more time than expected.

Plans change.

We sit around doing nothing.

We show up.

We wait.

We listen.

We spend three hours together and accomplish absolutely nothing.

Good.

Imagine optimizing every relationship for maximum efficiency.

Hello, beloved friend. We have forty-seven minutes allocated for connection. Please provide your three highest-priority emotional updates.

Absolutely the fuck not.

Relationships contain redundancy.

Silence.

Repetition.

Mess.

Spontaneity.

That’s part of what makes them relationships rather than transactions.

Bodies Are Inefficient, Too

Bodies are deeply inconvenient.

They need sleep.

Food.

Water.

Movement.

Rest.

Bathroom breaks.

They get sick.

They hurt.

They change.

They age.

They become tired at inappropriate times.

They have absolutely no respect for deadlines.

You can improve certain things.

Support certain things.

Treat certain things.

But you cannot optimize your way out of having a body.

And perhaps we should stop treating embodiment like an unfortunate logistical problem.

Your body’s needs are not interruptions to your life.

They are part of your life.

An Unoptimized Life Is Not an Uncared-For Life

This distinction matters.

I’m not arguing:

Fuck it. Never take care of yourself.

Quite the opposite.

Care matters.

Medical care matters.

Rest matters.

Movement matters.

Nutrition matters.

Learning what supports your particular body matters.

But care and optimization aren’t synonymous.

Care asks:

What supports you?

Optimization asks:

How can you perform better?

Sometimes the answers overlap.

Sometimes they don’t.

And when they don’t, I want care to win.

Maybe You Don’t Need to Maximize Your Capacity

This connects directly to our conversations about regulation.

We often use regulation tools to increase capacity.

That can be incredibly useful.

But there’s a question underneath it:

Why do we need more capacity?

Sometimes because there’s something meaningful we want to do.

Wonderful.

Sometimes because life is temporarily demanding more.

Okay.

But sometimes we’re trying to increase capacity because we’ve accepted the premise that whatever capacity we currently have is insufficient.

Why?

Who decided?

Maybe the answer isn’t:

How can I handle more?

Maybe it’s:

What if I stopped adding things?

There is no rule requiring us to operate at maximum capacity.

Machines shouldn’t even operate at maximum capacity constantly.

Why the fuck would humans?

Leave Some Space Unused

I think this might be one of the most radical things we can do.

Don’t fill every hour.

Don’t spend every spoon.

Don’t monetize every skill.

Don’t consume every quiet moment.

Don’t turn every interest into a project.

Don’t turn every practice into progress.

Leave something unused.

Time.

Attention.

Capacity.

Potential.

Not because you’re saving it for something better.

Because not every available resource must be extracted.

Sometimes the space itself is valuable.

Let Something Be Pointless

I want you to try this.

Do one thing this week that has no productive justification.

And don’t secretly give it one.

Don’t say:

Coloring reduces stress, so technically this is self-care.

Nope.

You are coloring because you want to color.

Don’t say:

Reading fiction develops empathy.

You are reading because there is a dragon and you want to know what the fucking dragon does.

Don’t say:

Spending time with friends supports mental health.

You are hanging out because you like these weirdos.

Don’t say:

Rest will help me perform better tomorrow.

You’re resting because you’re tired.

Or because resting feels good.

Or because you fucking can.

Let something be pointless.

Protect it from usefulness.

Breathe Without Improving the Breath

And while you’re at it...

Notice one breath.

Don’t deepen it.

Don’t slow it.

Don’t count it.

Don’t evaluate it.

Don’t ask what nervous-system state it indicates.

Don’t make it spiritual.

Don’t optimize it.

Just notice:

Breath happened.

And then let the next one happen without your supervision.

There’s something I love about that.

The body continues.

Without a dashboard.

Without a performance metric.

Without a five-step morning protocol.

Alive.

The Right to an Ordinary Life

Perhaps that’s what I’m actually arguing for.

Not laziness.

Not stagnation.

Not refusing growth.

The right to an ordinary human life.

A life that doesn’t need to become extraordinary to matter.

A body that doesn’t need to become optimized to deserve care.

A hobby that doesn’t need to become income.

A relationship that doesn’t need to become networking.

Rest that doesn’t need to become recovery.

Movement that doesn’t need to become exercise.

Attention that doesn’t need to become productivity.

Breath that doesn’t need to become technique.

Time that doesn’t need to become output.

Some things can simply belong to us.

There will always be another way to improve.

Another metric.

Another routine.

Another habit.

Another expert explaining how much better our lives could become if only we made seventeen small changes before breakfast.

Maybe some of those changes would help.

Make the ones that help.

But don’t confuse optimization with living.

A perfectly optimized life could still be a miserable one.

And a wildly inefficient life might contain laughter.

Friendship.

Curiosity.

Soft blankets.

Long conversations.

Ridiculous animals.

Good food.

Bad television.

Half-finished crafts.

Afternoon naps.

Inside jokes.

Books about dragons.

Unnecessary detours.

Moments when nobody accomplishes a goddamn thing.

And breath after completely ordinary breath.

I know which one sounds more like a life I want to inhabit.

So waste a little time.

Leave some capacity unused.

Do something badly.

Enjoy something without improving yourself through it.

Let a moment pass without extracting value from it.

You are not a machine.

You are not a metric.

You are not a project awaiting optimization.

You are a person.

And your life does not need to operate at peak efficiency in order to be worth living.

Sometimes you are allowed to simply be alive.

What a gloriously inefficient thing to be.

Namaste.

Do something.

You’re anxious?

Regulate.

You’re angry?

Breathe.

You’re sad?

Journal.

You’re overwhelmed?

Ground yourself.

You’re tired?

Optimize your sleep.

You’re stressed?

Meditate.

You’re uncomfortable?

Apparently we need to begin troubleshooting immediately.

There is a tool for everything.

A technique.

A practice.

A protocol.

An app.

A supplement.

A podcast.

A morning routine.

A nervous-system exercise.

And underneath all of it sits an assumption that sounds perfectly reasonable until we examine it:

If something feels bad, the goal is to make it feel better.

But is that always true?

Because sometimes we don’t feel good for a perfectly understandable reason.

Sometimes something hurts.

Sometimes something matters.

Sometimes we’re grieving.

Sometimes we’re furious.

Sometimes we’re frightened.

Sometimes we’re exhausted.

Sometimes the situation genuinely fucking sucks.

And maybe our first obligation isn’t to transform that experience into something more comfortable.

Maybe we’re allowed to experience it.

We Have Become Deeply Uncomfortable With Discomfort

To be clear, I’m not advocating suffering for suffering’s sake.

I have absolutely no interest in glorifying pain.

There is already enough of that nonsense embedded in wellness culture.

Push through.

No pain, no gain.

Discomfort means growth.

No.

Pain can mean many things, including:

Stop doing the fucking thing.

And anyone who has spent time in my yoga spaces knows how I feel about treating pain as proof of commitment.

I’m talking about something different.

I’m talking about the ordinary discomfort of being a person.

Sadness.

Frustration.

Uncertainty.

Embarrassment.

Disappointment.

Anger.

Restlessness.

Loneliness.

Fear.

The feelings that arrive because something happened.

We increasingly approach those feelings as though their mere presence constitutes a problem.

We don’t ask:

What am I experiencing?

We ask:

How do I make it stop?

Wellness Has Become Very Good at Offering Escape Routes

This makes sense commercially.

A problem creates a market.

If you feel something uncomfortable and I can convince you that discomfort requires intervention, I can sell you an intervention.

And because human beings experience discomfort regularly...

Congratulations.

I have recurring customers.

Stress is particularly profitable because nobody runs out of it.

Neither does insecurity.

Fatigue.

Fear.

Uncertainty.

There will always be another difficult day.

Another uncomfortable emotion.

Another night of bad sleep.

Another argument.

Another loss.

Another moment when being alive does not feel particularly serene.

So the wellness market can continue promising:

Here is how to feel better.

But I wonder whether we’re losing something when feeling better becomes the automatic objective.

Sometimes Sadness Is the Appropriate Response

Imagine someone you love is hurting.

Or something important ends.

Or you lose something that mattered.

You’re sad.

What exactly is the malfunction?

Maybe nothing.

Maybe sadness is an entirely coherent response to loss.

That doesn’t mean we refuse support.

It doesn’t mean we deliberately intensify our suffering.

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek help when we need it.

It means we don’t begin with the assumption:

This feeling should not be happening.

There is a difference between supporting ourselves while grieving and treating grief itself like a symptom requiring elimination.

Sometimes the loving response is not:

How do I stop being sad?

It’s:

Of course I’m sad. This mattered.

Sometimes Anger Is the Appropriate Response

Anger makes people particularly nervous.

We like calm anger.

Polite anger.

Anger that has completed several rounds of editing and can now be presented in a tone acceptable to everyone involved.

But sometimes something happens and we are fucking angry.

Again:

What exactly has malfunctioned?

Perhaps a boundary was crossed.

Perhaps something was unfair.

Perhaps someone was harmed.

Perhaps we’ve been asked to tolerate something unacceptable.

Anger doesn’t automatically tell us what action to take.

Being angry doesn’t make every conclusion we reach while angry correct.

But the existence of anger isn’t necessarily evidence that we need to regulate ourselves back into serenity.

Maybe we need enough presence to hear what the anger is saying.

Sometimes Fear Makes Sense

Fear gets complicated because bodies can respond to perceived danger even when danger isn’t actually present.

Our interpretations aren’t infallible.

But fear still tells us something about our experience.

Something feels threatening.

Something feels uncertain.

Something has activated a response.

We can become curious about that without immediately declaring:

Fear detected. Initiate calming procedure.

Maybe calming is useful.

Maybe it helps us assess what’s happening more clearly.

But again, the purpose doesn’t have to be eliminating the emotion.

The purpose can be remaining present enough to understand what we’re experiencing.

And Sometimes We Just Feel Like Shit

I think we need permission for this one.

Sometimes there isn’t a profound explanation.

You have a shitty day.

You’re irritable.

Nothing feels right.

You’re tired.

Your clothes are touching you wrong.

Every sound is approximately forty percent louder than it has any right to be.

The internet isn’t working.

Someone is chewing.

The dog has barked at the same thing twelve times.

You’ve lost an object you were holding thirty seconds ago.

And the emotional weather report is simply:

Fuck this.

Do we really need to turn that into a spiritual lesson?

Do we need to investigate which nervous-system state we’re occupying?

Do we need to journal about it?

Maybe.

If that’s helpful.

But perhaps sometimes we can just acknowledge:

Today kinda sucks.

And continue from there.

Not Every Experience Needs Transformation

This is where wellness culture and spiritual culture sometimes overlap in ways that make me twitchy.

We can become obsessed with extracting meaning.

What is this teaching me?

Why did the Universe send this?

What lesson am I supposed to learn?

How is this helping me grow?

What wound is being activated?

What pattern is this revealing?

Maybe something meaningful emerges.

Wonderful.

But sometimes a shitty thing is simply a shitty thing.

Sometimes pain is pain.

Sometimes disappointment is disappointment.

Sometimes we don’t need to turn suffering into tuition for the University of Personal Growth.

We’re allowed to dislike something without thanking it for the lesson.

Presence Is Not Transformation

This month’s exploration of Prāṇāyāma keeps bringing me back to this distinction.

Breath is often presented as a transformational tool.

Change the breath to change the state.

There can be value there.

But before transformation comes awareness.

The breath is already happening.

The experience is already happening.

Can we notice?

Can we inhabit the moment without immediately trying to turn it into a different moment?

That is a surprisingly difficult practice.

Because the moment we notice discomfort, the fixing impulse arrives.

Change this.

But presence doesn’t require immediate change.

Presence says:

This is here.

Maybe we change something next.

Maybe we don’t.

But first:

Here.

The Breath Doesn’t Have to Rescue You

This is something I particularly want to resist during Prāṇāyāma month.

I don’t want the breath to become another superhero tool.

Feeling bad?

BREATH TO THE RESCUE!

Take three breaths and transform your entire emotional landscape.

No.

Sometimes you take three breaths and you’re still pissed off.

You haven’t failed.

Sometimes you lengthen the exhale and you’re still sad.

You haven’t failed.

Sometimes you practice and your day remains difficult.

You haven’t failed.

Breath doesn’t owe us transformation.

Sometimes a breath is simply part of remaining present while something difficult is happening.

Inhale.

Still sad.

Exhale.

Still here.

Another breath.

Still here.

That can matter without making the sadness disappear.

Regulation Doesn’t Have to Mean Feeling Better

I think this is one of the most useful distinctions we can make.

Suppose you’re overwhelmed.

You use something supportive.

Breath.

Movement.

Quiet.

A sensory tool.

Connection.

Afterward, you’re still overwhelmed.

But perhaps now you can recognize:

I need to cancel something.

Or:

I need help.

Or:

I can’t solve this tonight.

You didn’t necessarily feel better.

But you gained information.

Presence.

A little space.

That’s useful.

If we define every regulation tool by whether it makes us feel better, we miss the other things those tools can give us.

Comfort Is Good. It Just Isn’t a Moral Requirement.

I don’t want this argument misunderstood as some weird celebration of discomfort.

Comfort is wonderful.

Please be comfortable whenever possible.

Get the good pillow.

Wear the soft pants.

Eat the thing.

Turn down the lights.

Move the chair.

Take the medication.

Cancel the unnecessary thing.

Rest.

Use whatever supportive tools are available and appropriate to you.

We do not need to earn comfort.

But comfort also isn’t proof that we’re doing life correctly.

And discomfort isn’t proof that we’re doing it incorrectly.

Sometimes discomfort exists because life contains uncomfortable things.

The Pressure to Feel Better Can Make Feeling Bad Worse

This is the cruel irony.

You’re sad.

Then:

I shouldn’t still be sad.

Now you’re sad and judging yourself.

You’re anxious.

Why can’t I calm down?

Now you’re anxious and frustrated with yourself.

You’re exhausted.

I should be able to handle this.

Now you’re exhausted and ashamed.

The original experience hasn’t gone anywhere.

We’ve simply stacked another experience on top.

Sometimes one of the kindest things we can do is remove the second layer.

I’m sad.

Okay.

I’m anxious.

Okay.

I’m fucking exhausted.

Okay.

Not:

Everything is fine.

Not:

I enjoy this.

Just:

This is what is true right now.

This Is Not the Same as Giving Up

Acceptance gets misunderstood constantly.

If I acknowledge that something is happening, people sometimes hear:

Therefore I intend to do nothing about it forever.

That’s not what acceptance means.

I can acknowledge:

I’m exhausted

and decide something needs to change.

I can acknowledge:

I’m angry

and set a boundary.

I can acknowledge:

I’m unhappy here

and leave.

I can acknowledge:

I’m overwhelmed

and ask for help.

Accurately recognizing the current situation is not surrender.

It’s information.

You can’t make an informed decision about where you’re going while insisting you’re somewhere else.

We Need to Stop Treating Every Emotion Like a Customer-Service Complaint

Sometimes emotions are inconvenient.

They arrive at terrible times.

We would like them to please come back during normal business hours.

They decline.

So we try:

Hello, yes. I’d like to speak to the manager of my nervous system. This sadness is interfering with my schedule.

Unfortunately, the nervous system does not have a customer-service desk.

Being human is deeply inconvenient.

We have reactions.

Needs.

Limits.

Emotions.

Bodies.

None of them reliably coordinate with our calendars.

Maybe wellness shouldn’t promise to eliminate that inconvenience.

Maybe it should help us live inside it with a little more awareness and a little less hostility toward ourselves.

Sometimes Support Means Staying, Not Solving

Think about how we care for someone we love.

Sometimes they tell us something difficult.

And we know we cannot fix it.

There is no solution.

The loss cannot be undone.

The situation cannot immediately change.

So what do we do?

We stay.

Listen.

Sit beside them.

Bring food.

Make tea.

Hold a hand if that’s wanted.

We don’t demand that they become cheerful so we can confirm our support worked.

Why are we so much worse at offering ourselves the same thing?

Maybe sometimes self-care means:

I’m not going to abandon myself because I’m uncomfortable.

Not:

I will make myself feel better immediately.

Just:

I’m staying.

What If Nothing Needs to Happen in the Next Five Minutes?

Here’s something to experiment with.

The next time an uncomfortable emotion appears—and assuming you are safe and don’t need immediate action—give yourself five minutes before trying to fix it.

Not five minutes of deliberately wallowing.

Just five minutes without an assignment.

Notice.

Maybe name it.

Maybe notice your breath.

Maybe don’t.

And resist the immediate question:

How do I make this stop?

Try:

What is happening?

Then:

What would be supportive?

Notice the difference.

Support doesn’t always mean elimination.

Sometimes support is a glass of water.

A blanket.

A friend.

Movement.

A cry.

Quiet.

A snack.

A breath.

Or simply not demanding that the emotion leave before it has finished arriving.

Feeling Better Is Allowed, Too

And because humans love turning ideas into rigid rules, let me say this explicitly:

If you know something will help you feel better...

you are allowed to fucking do it.

Please.

We’re not creating the Suffering Olympics.

You don’t receive spiritual bonus points for refusing comfort.

Take the breath.

Use the grounding tool.

Go for the walk.

Call the friend.

Watch the ridiculous show.

Take the nap.

The distinction is whether we’re caring for ourselves or treating ourselves like malfunctioning equipment.

I want to support myself through this

feels very different from:

I need to stop feeling this immediately.

The Goal Is Not Permanent Comfort

There is no human life in which we successfully eliminate all discomfort.

And I don’t think we’d want one.

Some of our most meaningful experiences contain discomfort.

Loving people makes loss possible.

Trying something new includes uncertainty.

Creating something includes vulnerability.

Setting boundaries can feel uncomfortable.

Change can be frightening even when it’s wanted.

Growth—real growth, not the Instagram quote version—can be messy.

If our only metric is:

Does this feel good?

we lose enormous parts of being alive.

The goal cannot be permanent comfort.

Maybe the goal isn’t a particular feeling at all.

Maybe it’s relationship.

A Relationship With the Person Who Is Having the Experience

That’s what I keep returning to.

Can I stay in relationship with myself while I’m uncomfortable?

Can I hear myself?

Can I recognize what’s happening without immediately declaring myself defective?

Can I offer support without demanding a particular outcome?

Can I breathe without requiring the breath to rescue me?

Can I say:

This hurts

without immediately adding:

and therefore something is wrong with me for hurting?

That’s presence.

And sometimes presence will lead us toward change.

Sometimes toward comfort.

Sometimes toward action.

Sometimes toward rest.

Sometimes it simply sits beside us for a while.

Wellness culture is very good at asking:

How do we feel better?

I think we need another question alongside it:

How do we care for ourselves when we don’t?

Because there will be days when the breathing technique doesn’t make everything okay.

Days when the journal remains blank.

Days when meditation irritates us.

Days when the walk doesn’t clear our head.

Days when rest doesn’t restore everything.

Days when we do all the “right” things and still feel like shit.

That’s not necessarily evidence that the tools failed.

And it certainly isn’t evidence that we failed.

Sometimes we’re simply having a difficult human experience.

And perhaps, instead of immediately demanding transformation, we can offer ourselves something far more ordinary:

Company.

Our own.

One breath.

Then another.

Not to become calm.

Not to become positive.

Not to become anything at all.

Just because we’re still here.

And for right now?

Maybe that’s enough.

Namaste.

Sleep became optimization.

Movement became productivity support.

Meditation became focus training.

Breathing became regulation.

And regulation became the ability to get ourselves back online quickly enough to continue doing whatever exhausted us in the first place.

That is a very particular definition of wellness.

And I think we should ask who it serves.

Because there is an enormous difference between:

How can I care for myself while living this life?

and:

How can I maintain myself well enough to keep meeting the demands of this life?

The first question treats us like human beings.

The second treats us like equipment.

And increasingly, I worry that the wellness industry is teaching us preventative maintenance.

Welcome to the Human Resources Department of Your Own Nervous System

You know the language.

Build resilience.

Manage stress.

Improve focus.

Increase energy.

Optimize sleep.

Develop coping skills.

Reduce burnout.

Regulate your nervous system.

Become more productive without sacrificing your wellbeing.

It all sounds perfectly reasonable.

Some of it is.

But put those phrases together and something starts becoming visible.

We’re often being taught how to manage ourselves so that external demands don’t have to change.

The workload remains.

The expectations remain.

The schedule remains.

The structural problem remains.

But perhaps if we sleep better, breathe better, eat better, exercise more, meditate consistently, maintain boundaries, and practice gratitude...

we’ll be able to keep up.

And if we can’t?

Well.

There must be another tool we haven’t tried yet.

Burnout Became an Individual Problem

Consider the way we talk about burnout.

What advice do we give?

Take breaks.

Practice mindfulness.

Get enough sleep.

Exercise.

Set boundaries.

Take time for yourself.

Disconnect from work.

Those things can help.

But what caused the burnout?

Was the workload reasonable?

Was there adequate staffing?

Did the person have meaningful control over their work?

Were they expected to remain constantly available?

Were they doing the jobs of three people?

Were their boundaries respected when they attempted to set them?

Could they actually afford to take time off?

Did the organization create conditions in which rest was possible?

Or did we simply hand the exhausted person a list of additional tasks and call it self-care?

Because there is something spectacularly absurd about telling someone:

You’re overwhelmed because you have too much to do. Here are eight more things you should be doing.

And then acting surprised when they don’t manage those, either.

Self-Care Becomes Another Obligation

This is where self-care can turn against us.

You should meditate.

You should journal.

You should exercise.

You should meal prep.

You should drink more water.

You should sleep eight hours.

You should practice gratitude.

You should get outside.

You should breathe.

You should disconnect.

You should maintain relationships.

You should have hobbies.

You should go to therapy.

You should make time for yourself.

You should.

You should.

You should.

At what point did care acquire so much homework?

And what happens when we don’t have the capacity to complete it?

Now we’re not only exhausted.

We’re failing at being exhausted correctly.

The Productivity Industry Discovered Wellness

This wasn’t particularly difficult to predict.

Once employers and productivity culture realized healthier workers could remain productive longer, wellness became very interesting.

Now wellbeing could be framed as an investment.

Meditation could improve focus.

Exercise could improve productivity.

Sleep could improve performance.

Breaks could increase efficiency.

Breathing techniques could reduce stress.

And again:

Those benefits may be real.

But listen to the framing.

Why are we resting?

So we can work better.

Why are we sleeping?

So we can perform better.

Why are we managing stress?

So stress doesn’t interfere with productivity.

Why are we regulating?

So we can return to function.

Even rest must prove that it contributes to output.

Apparently existing comfortably isn’t enough justification.

Rest Should Not Need a Business Case

I want to say this very clearly:

You should not have to prove that rest will make you more productive in order to deserve rest.

Rest is not merely maintenance.

Sleep isn’t valuable only because it makes tomorrow’s labor more efficient.

Joy isn’t valuable because happier people work better.

Friendship isn’t important because social connection improves performance.

Movement doesn’t need to burn calories or improve focus to count.

You do not need to convert every nourishing thing in your life into an investment with measurable returns.

Some things are valuable because they make being alive better.

That’s enough.

And Then There Is Breath

This month, I’ve been exploring Prāṇāyāma, the fourth limb of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga.

Which means we’re talking about breath.

And breath has become particularly attractive to modern wellness because breath is portable.

Free.

Usually invisible to everyone around us.

Available during work.

Available during meetings.

Available during conflict.

Available when we’re overwhelmed.

You don’t need special equipment.

You can take a few intentional breaths without leaving your desk.

From an accessibility standpoint, some of that can be genuinely wonderful.

But from a productivity standpoint?

It’s fucking perfect.

No disruption required.

No structural change.

No break, necessarily.

Just teach the worker how to breathe through it.

And that’s where I start getting suspicious.

What Are We Asking the Breath to Do?

Breath can support us.

It can become a point of attention.

Intentional breath practices can be meaningful.

But what happens when the underlying request becomes:

Help me tolerate this.

The deadline isn’t changing.

Breathe.

The workload isn’t changing.

Breathe.

The conflict isn’t being addressed.

Breathe.

The environment is overstimulating.

Breathe.

You don’t have enough support.

Breathe.

You’re exhausted.

Breathe.

At some point, we have to ask:

Why is the breath the only thing being asked to change?

Maybe sometimes the answer genuinely is:

Because the circumstances can’t change right now, and this gives me something supportive while I navigate them.

That’s valid.

Survival matters.

Comfort matters.

Having a tool available when we cannot control our circumstances matters.

But there is a dangerous leap from:

This helps me survive a difficult condition

to:

This makes the difficult condition acceptable.

Those are not the same statement.

Coping Is Not Consent

I think this distinction gets lost constantly.

People adapt.

Humans are incredibly adaptable.

We develop routines.

Coping mechanisms.

Skills.

Shortcuts.

Ways of getting through.

That adaptability is often praised as resilience.

And resilience can be beautiful.

But resilience can also become an expectation.

If people have repeatedly survived impossible conditions, we begin assuming they can continue surviving them.

If they develop coping skills, we increase the demand.

If they learn to function under pressure, pressure becomes normal.

Eventually their ability to cope becomes evidence that nothing needs to change.

But:

Coping with something doesn’t mean it is okay.

Being capable of surviving a situation does not mean someone should have to survive it.

And having regulation tools does not mean we owe anyone increased tolerance.

Resilience Can Become a Threat

There is a phrase that gets praised constantly:

You’re so resilient.

Sometimes that’s a beautiful acknowledgment of what someone has survived.

Sometimes it’s loving.

Sometimes it’s true.

But resilience can become sinister when it means:

You survived the last impossible thing, so I’m confident you’ll survive the next one.

People shouldn’t have to continuously demonstrate resilience because nobody will reduce the demands being placed on them.

A rubber band can stretch.

That doesn’t mean the correct response is to keep stretching it until we discover exactly where it snaps.

Human capacity works much the same way.

The fact that someone can carry something doesn’t answer whether they should have to.

Regulation Shouldn’t Make Us More Exploitable

This is one of the questions I think we need to ask whenever we talk about nervous-system regulation:

What happens after I regulate?

Do I feel more present?

More comfortable?

More able to understand what I’m experiencing?

Wonderful.

Or do I simply become capable of enduring another hour?

Another task?

Another demand?

Another boundary violation?

Another unreasonable expectation?

If every regulation tool returns us directly to the environment that overwhelmed us without ever questioning the environment, we’ve built a very efficient maintenance cycle.

Overload.

Regulate.

Return.

Overload.

Regulate.

Return.

Repeat until something breaks.

That isn’t wellbeing.

That’s keeping the machine running.

Sometimes the Most Important Information Is “This Is Too Much”

Presence gives us something productivity culture doesn’t always want us to have.

The ability to notice:

This is too much.

Not:

I need to become better at handling this.

Just:

This is too much.

That sentence matters.

Because it moves our attention from personal inadequacy toward capacity and conditions.

Maybe something is too much because we’re tired.

Maybe because we’re already carrying something else.

Maybe because the expectation itself is unreasonable.

Maybe because there isn’t enough support.

Maybe because we simply don’t have the resources today.

But if every experience of overwhelm is immediately translated into:

I need to regulate better

we may never ask whether the demand itself deserves examination.

There Are Limits to Individual Solutions

This is where wellness culture often frustrates me most.

Individual practices can be enormously valuable.

But individual practices cannot solve every problem.

No amount of meditation creates affordable childcare.

No breathing exercise fixes chronic understaffing.

Yoga doesn’t increase wages.

A gratitude journal doesn’t make housing affordable.

A morning routine cannot manufacture additional hours in the day.

These tools may help individuals navigate the consequences of those problems.

That’s meaningful.

But we should never confuse helping someone endure the consequences with solving the cause.

When every problem receives an individual wellness solution, systems escape accountability.

What Would Care Look Like If Productivity Weren’t the Goal?

I think this is the question that interests me most.

Suppose your self-care didn’t have to make you better at anything.

Not better at work.

Not more efficient.

Not more focused.

Not calmer.

Not healthier according to some external metric.

What would you choose?

Would you still choose the same things?

Maybe yes.

Maybe you genuinely love yoga.

Maybe meditation feels wonderful.

Maybe walking brings you joy.

Maybe intentional breath practice makes you feel more connected to yourself.

Excellent.

But maybe you’d stop doing something you’ve only been doing because you’re convinced a responsible person should.

Maybe you’d sleep.

Play.

Read something utterly useless.

Watch terrible television.

Make art nobody will buy.

Move without tracking it.

Sit outside without turning it into a mindfulness exercise.

Spend time with someone you love without discussing goals.

Maybe you’d do absolutely nothing for a while.

And maybe nothing would need to come from it.

Leisure Does Not Need to Become Development

We’ve almost forgotten how to have hobbies.

Everything becomes content.

Side hustle.

Personal development.

Skill acquisition.

Portfolio.

Networking.

Monetization.

If you’re good at something, sell it.

If you enjoy something, improve at it.

If you make something, post it.

If you know something, teach it.

If you experience something, turn it into content.

What happens to the things we do badly and joyfully?

What happens to the shitty painting?

The ridiculous dance.

The half-finished craft.

The garden that feeds three tomatoes to the squirrels.

The walk that goes nowhere.

The book read purely because it contains dragons and we felt like reading about fucking dragons?

Those things matter.

Not because they improve us.

Because they belong to a life.

Self-Care Should Return Us to Ourselves, Not Our Output

Maybe that’s the distinction I want.

Care should help us remain in relationship with ourselves.

Sometimes that means helping us do something difficult.

Sometimes it means restoring capacity.

Sometimes it means supporting our bodies.

But care should not exist solely to return us to productivity.

If the only reason we are allowed to rest is because rest makes us better workers, then work still owns the rest.

If the only reason we regulate is to become functional again, then functionality remains the standard.

If the only reason we care for ourselves is so we can continue producing, then self-care has become maintenance.

And human beings deserve more than maintenance.

Prāṇāyāma Without the Productivity Pitch

So this month, as I explore Prāṇāyāma, I want to resist the temptation to justify it through productivity.

I’m not interested in promising:

Practice this breathing technique and become more focused at work.

Maybe you will.

Great.

But that’s not the point.

I’m interested in breath because breath is part of embodiment.

Because it changes.

Because we can notice it.

Because interacting with it intentionally can teach us things about attention.

Because yoga invites us into a relationship with breath that is larger than the modern wellness industry’s desire to optimize our nervous systems.

Sometimes breath may help us feel calmer.

Sometimes it may simply remind us:

I’m here.

And that can be enough.

The Radical Possibility of Being a Person

What if wellness wasn’t about making ourselves more efficient?

What if it was about making our lives more inhabitable?

Not:

How much can I handle?

But:

What kind of life am I trying to live?

Not:

How quickly can I recover?

But:

What do I need?

Not:

How do I increase my resilience?

But:

Why is so much resilience required?

Not:

How can I regulate enough to get through this?

But also:

Should this be this difficult in the first place?

Those questions don’t always produce easy solutions.

Sometimes we discover the thing cannot change right now.

Then yes.

Use the tool.

Breathe.

Rest where you can.

Find support.

Do what helps you survive.

There is no shame in surviving.

But don’t let survival strategies convince you that survival conditions are acceptable.

Care Is Allowed to Be Care

You don’t have to earn rest by exhausting yourself first.

You don’t have to make leisure productive.

You don’t have to monetize joy.

You don’t have to optimize every biological process.

You don’t have to become extraordinarily resilient so everyone else can keep demanding more from you.

And you don’t have to justify a breathing practice by demonstrating that it improves your output.

Sometimes you breathe because you’re alive.

Sometimes you rest because you’re tired.

Sometimes you play because it’s fun.

Sometimes you stop because you’ve had enough.

Sometimes you do something utterly useless because being alive is supposed to contain things other than usefulness.

That’s not laziness.

That’s not failure.

That’s not a lack of resilience.

That’s a human life refusing to become a performance metric.

So the next time someone tells you a wellness practice will make you more productive, focused, efficient, resilient, or capable of handling more...

maybe ask a different question:

Will it help me belong to myself?

Because if self-care only teaches us how to become better workers, better consumers, and more efficient containers for other people’s expectations...

it isn’t really teaching us to care for ourselves.

It’s job training.

And we’ve done enough unpaid fucking training.

Namaste.

You’re angry?

Calm down.

You’re anxious?

Take a breath.

You’re overwhelmed?

Ground yourself.

You’re crying?

Regulate.

And those suggestions aren’t necessarily bad.

Breathing can help.

Grounding can help.

Movement can help.

Rest can help.

But there’s an important question hiding underneath all of this:

What are we trying to accomplish?

Are we helping ourselves move through an experience?

Or are we trying to make the experience disappear because we’ve decided we’re not supposed to be having it?

Those are not the same thing.

This month, we’ve been exploring Prāṇāyāma, the fourth limb of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga.

And this week especially, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between breath, regulation, and presence.

The breath gives us information.

It changes as our experience changes.

Stress may affect it.

Pain may affect it.

Excitement may affect it.

Fear may affect it.

Anger may affect it.

And sometimes consciously interacting with our breathing can change how we experience a moment.

That’s valuable.

But the goal cannot always be:

Return to calm as quickly as possible.

Because calm isn’t the only acceptable human state.

Sometimes Anger Is Information

Let’s say you’re angry.

Maybe somebody crossed a boundary.

Maybe you witnessed something unjust.

Maybe someone treated you poorly.

Maybe you have asked seventeen fucking times for something to stop happening and it is, inexplicably, still happening.

Your anger may be telling you something.

If your only goal is to make the anger disappear, you may miss the information it carries.

What happened?

What matters to you here?

Was a boundary crossed?

Is something unsafe?

Does something need to change?

Do you need to speak?

Leave?

Ask for help?

Sometimes regulation gives us enough space to decide what to do with anger.

Suppression simply demands that we stop being angry.

There’s a difference.

The Same Is True of Other Emotions

Fear can contain information.

So can grief.

Frustration.

Overwhelm.

Even excitement.

Our emotions aren’t infallible messengers delivering objective truth.

Feeling frightened doesn’t automatically mean we’re unsafe.

Feeling angry doesn’t automatically mean someone else is wrong.

Feeling anxious doesn’t automatically mean catastrophe is coming.

But our feelings are still part of our experience.

They deserve attention.

Presence lets us say:

Something is happening.

Then curiosity lets us ask:

What is this telling me?

And discernment helps us decide:

What do I want to do with that information?

That’s a much richer process than:

Emotion detected. Initiate calming sequence.

We’re humans.

Not fucking smoke alarms.

Regulation Can Create Choice

This is where I think regulation becomes genuinely useful.

Not as a way of becoming unaffected.

As a way of creating more choice inside the experience.

Maybe I’m furious.

If I’m so activated that I can’t decide what I want to do next, perhaps I need something that helps me create a little more room.

Maybe that’s breath.

Maybe movement.

Maybe stepping outside.

Maybe sensory grounding.

Maybe talking to someone.

Maybe being alone.

Maybe waiting before sending the email I’ve just written entirely in capital letters.

Regulation doesn’t necessarily mean:

Now I am calm.

Maybe I’m still angry.

But perhaps now I can choose whether I want to speak.

Perhaps I can decide what boundary I actually need.

Perhaps I can distinguish what happened from what I assumed happened.

Perhaps I can decide that yes, actually, I’m still fucking angry—and I have good reason to be.

The emotion didn’t fail to disappear.

Disappearing wasn’t necessarily the goal.

Presence Isn’t Always Comfortable

This is one reason I push back against the idea that mindfulness is synonymous with peacefulness.

Sometimes being present feels wonderful.

Sometimes presence means noticing sunshine through the window, the weight of a sleeping animal against your leg, or how good the first sip of coffee tastes.

And sometimes presence means:

Oh. I am absolutely at capacity.

That’s still awareness.

Maybe especially important awareness.

Because if I can recognize that I’m at capacity, I have information I didn’t have when I was simply pushing through.

I might not be able to change everything.

But perhaps I can change one thing.

Cancel something.

Ask for help.

Eat.

Rest.

Set a boundary.

Stop adding tasks.

Lower an expectation.

Or acknowledge:

Today is harder than I expected it to be.

None of that requires me to become calm first.

Your Feelings Don’t Need to Become Convenient

I think this distinction matters outside our individual practice, too.

Because sometimes people praise “regulation” when what they actually want is compliance.

They don’t want us regulated.

They want us quiet.

They want the anger expressed more politely.

The grief contained.

The frustration softened.

The boundary delivered gently enough that nobody else has to feel uncomfortable.

And yoga should not become another tool for teaching us how to make our reactions more convenient for everyone around us.

The practice can give us tools for awareness.

It can help us notice what happens inside our bodies.

It can offer practices that sometimes create more room between stimulus and response.

But what we do with that room still belongs to us.

Sometimes we breathe and decide to let something go.

Sometimes we breathe and decide to speak.

Sometimes we breathe and decide:

No. This actually isn’t okay.

All three can come from presence.

So here’s the question I want to leave with you this week:

When you reach for a regulation tool, ask:

What am I asking this tool to do?

Am I creating enough space to hear myself?

Or am I trying to stop feeling something because I’ve decided that feeling is unacceptable?

Maybe the answer changes from day to day.

That’s okay.

This isn’t another thing to get right.

It’s another thing to notice.

Because regulation doesn’t have to mean becoming calm enough to tolerate everything.

Sometimes regulation gives us enough room to recognize what we’re not willing to tolerate anymore.

And that, too, can be part of tending the HeartFire.

Namaste, Witchlings. 🌙

Your shoulders are tense.

Your breath is shallow.

Your jaw is clenched.

Your balance is wobbly.

One side feels different from the other.

Something doesn’t move as far as you expected.

What’s the next thought?

For a lot of us, it’s some version of:

Okay. How do I correct that?

And that’s understandable.

We’re surrounded by messages telling us that awareness is valuable primarily because it helps us identify what needs improvement.

Notice your posture so you can correct it.

Notice your breathing so you can regulate it.

Notice your movement patterns so you can improve them.

Notice your body so you can change it.

But what if noticing doesn’t always have to be followed by intervention?

What if sometimes...

Noticing is the practice?

Read more

Our watches know when we sleep.

Our phones know how much we walk.

Apps can track our heart rate, breathing rate, menstrual cycles, calories, hydration, workouts, mood, meditation, productivity, screen time, stress, recovery, and approximately seventeen other things I didn’t realize I was supposed to be concerned about until somebody invented a graph for them.

We can wake up feeling perfectly fine, glance at a device, and discover that apparently...

we slept like shit.

Well.

Good morning to you, too.

There is enormous value in information.

There are reasons people track things.

Patterns can be useful.

Data can help us understand our bodies.

But somewhere between information can help us and everything about us can be measured, we began developing a peculiar relationship with embodiment.

We stopped merely experiencing our bodies.

We started monitoring them.

And once you monitor something long enough, it’s very easy to start believing you’re supposed to optimize it.

The Quantified Self

Modern wellness loves numbers.

Numbers feel objective.

Steps.

Minutes.

Hours.

Calories.

Heart rate.

Breaths per minute.

Scores.

Streaks.

Percentages.

Goals.

Numbers give us something concrete to look at.

They can help reveal patterns we wouldn’t otherwise notice.

But numbers also create targets.

Ten thousand steps.

Eight hours of sleep.

A certain amount of water.

A particular heart rate.

A meditation streak.

And once there is a target, there is something else:

Success and failure.

Did you hit it?

Did you miss it?

Did you improve?

Are you trending in the correct direction?

Suddenly your body has a performance report.

And you are both the employee and the manager.

We Do This Without Technology, Too

Devices didn’t invent this impulse.

They merely gave it better graphics.

Yoga practitioners have been measuring themselves forever.

Can I touch my toes?

How long can I hold this pose?

How deeply can I fold?

How long can I meditate?

Can I sit still?

How many breaths?

How long is my exhale?

How calm do I feel?

How focused am I?

How much progress have I made?

Sometimes those questions are useful.

But there’s another question worth asking:

What happens when I don’t measure it?

What happens when I simply experience it?

Breath Is Particularly Vulnerable to This

This month, I’ve been exploring Prāṇāyāma, the fourth limb of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga.

And breath is incredibly easy to quantify.

We can count it.

Time it.

Compare inhale and exhale.

Track breathing rate.

Measure pauses.

We can build practices around rhythm and duration.

Specific Prāṇāyāma techniques may indeed involve structured interaction with the breath.

But before any of that, there’s something almost radically simple available to us:

Notice that you’re breathing.

Not how efficiently.

Not whether your breathing rate is optimal.

Not whether your inhale is long enough.

Just:

I’m breathing.

What does it feel like?

Where do I notice it?

Did it change?

That kind of awareness produces very different information from a score.

A Score Tells You Where You Rank

An experience tells you where you are.

Those are not the same thing.

Imagine waking after a night of sleep.

Without looking at anything, you might notice:

I feel rested.

I feel groggy.

My body hurts.

I want another hour.

I slept wonderfully.

I woke seventeen times.

Then you look at your sleep score.

Maybe the data confirms your experience.

Useful.

But what happens when it doesn’t?

Your device says you slept beautifully.

You feel like roadkill.

Who gets the deciding vote?

Or the reverse:

You wake feeling good.

The device announces your recovery score is terrible.

Do you continue feeling good?

Or do you begin searching your body for evidence that the number is correct?

Information can support embodiment.

It can also override it.

The Dashboard Changes How We Look at Ourselves

A dashboard is designed to identify problems.

That’s its job.

Warning light.

Low fuel.

High temperature.

Something outside the expected range.

Action required.

Very useful when we’re talking about machines.

But if we begin treating our bodies primarily like dashboards, ordinary fluctuations start looking like warning lights.

Tired?

Investigate.

Restless?

Investigate.

Heart beating quickly?

Investigate.

Breathing changed?

Intervene.

Mood shifted?

Track it.

Energy lower?

Optimize.

Sometimes investigation is absolutely appropriate.

Bodies deserve care.

Changes can matter.

But human bodies also vary.

We are not static systems.

We respond to environment.

Sleep.

Movement.

Emotion.

Food.

Stress.

Hormones.

Pain.

Illness.

Joy.

Temperature.

A thousand variables.

Variation is not automatically malfunction.

Wellness Loves the Warning Light

There is a business model hiding here.

If every uncomfortable experience is evidence of a problem, there is always something to sell.

Sleep badly?

Product.

Stress?

Product.

Low energy?

Product.

Difficulty focusing?

Product.

Poor recovery?

Product.

Need to regulate your nervous system?

Oh, gods.

Do we have products.

Courses.

Supplements.

Apps.

Wearables.

Subscriptions.

Programs.

Challenges.

Specialized devices.

The wellness economy thrives on a very particular belief:

Your body is constantly presenting problems that require active management.

And once we believe that, simply existing becomes a full-time job.

Self-Knowledge or Self-Surveillance?

This is the distinction I keep returning to.

There is a difference between paying attention to ourselves and watching ourselves.

Self-awareness asks:

What am I experiencing?

Self-surveillance asks:

Am I performing correctly?

Those questions can look remarkably similar from the outside.

You can track sleep because you’re curious about what helps you feel rested.

Or because you’re afraid of getting sleep wrong.

You can notice your breathing because you’re developing awareness.

Or because you’re monitoring yourself for evidence of dysregulation.

You can practice yoga because movement helps you inhabit your body.

Or because you’re trying to make your body pass a test.

Same action.

Very different relationship.

Presence Isn’t Monitoring

This matters when we talk about mindfulness.

Mindfulness is often described as paying attention.

But attention can become surveillance remarkably quickly when judgment enters the room.

I notice my shoulders are tense.

Okay.

That’s awareness.

Then:

My shoulders shouldn’t be tense.

Now we’re somewhere else.

I notice I’m breathing quickly.

Awareness.

I need to regulate.

Maybe.

But do you?

What happened?

Were you climbing stairs?

Laughing?

Excited?

Angry?

Scared?

Running late?

Bodies respond.

The observation isn’t a diagnosis.

Presence gives us the opportunity to gather context before turning on the warning light.

Not Every Signal Is an Emergency

This may be one of the hardest things to remember when we’re learning to pay attention to the body.

The body communicates constantly.

Some signals are urgent.

Some matter but can wait.

Some are ordinary responses.

Some are barely more than:

Hey, thought you might want to know.

Hunger.

Fatigue.

Tension.

Restlessness.

Temperature.

Pain.

Comfort.

Discomfort.

Breath.

Our job isn’t necessarily to immediately make every signal disappear.

Sometimes the signal tells us something useful.

I’m hungry.

Okay. Food would probably help.

Sometimes it’s contextual.

My heart is beating faster.

Well, I just carried laundry upstairs.

Mystery solved.

Sometimes we don’t know.

And we don’t have to manufacture certainty just because uncertainty makes us uncomfortable.

What Happens When We Immediately Intervene?

Suppose you notice your breath is shallow.

Immediately, you deepen it.

Maybe that feels wonderful.

But you’ve skipped a question:

Why was my breathing shallow?

Perhaps you were concentrating.

Perhaps you were tense.

Perhaps your position was uncomfortable.

Perhaps you were anxious.

Perhaps that’s simply how you happened to be breathing in that moment.

Again, not every observation contains profound hidden wisdom.

Sometimes a shallow breath is just a shallow breath.

But if our automatic response to bodily information is always correction, we never learn the difference.

Notice.

Context.

Then response.

That little sequence leaves room for relationship.

Optimization Has No Finish Line

This is one of my larger problems with optimization culture.

There is always another metric.

Improve sleep.

Then recovery.

Then nutrition.

Then movement.

Then breathing.

Then focus.

Then productivity.

Then stress.

Then your morning routine.

Then your evening routine.

Then your fucking routine for recovering from having too many routines.

There is no point where the dashboard lights up:

CONGRATULATIONS. HUMAN OPTIMIZED. PLEASE ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR EXISTENCE.

Because optimization isn’t designed to finish.

There is always another percentage point available.

Another habit.

Another improvement.

Another version of yourself waiting just beyond the next adjustment.

And while we’re busy trying to become that person...

We’re living this person’s life.

Data Can Be Useful Without Becoming Authority

None of this requires throwing away your watch.

Or deleting every app.

Or refusing to count anything ever again.

That would just create another rigid rule, and gods know we have enough of those.

The question isn’t:

Is tracking bad?

The question is:

What relationship do I have with the information?

Does it help me understand myself?

Does it help me make decisions?

Does it reveal useful patterns?

Wonderful.

Or does it make me anxious?

Does it override what I’m experiencing?

Does it create another standard I feel compelled to meet?

Does it turn care into performance?

Those questions matter more than whether the tool itself is good or bad.

Your Body Knows Things the Dashboard Doesn’t

A metric can tell you that you slept seven hours and forty-two minutes.

It cannot tell you what it felt like to wake beside someone you love.

A step counter can tell you how far you walked.

It cannot tell you about the conversation you had while walking.

A breathing rate can tell you how many breaths you took.

It cannot tell you why you laughed until you couldn’t breathe.

A heart-rate graph can show a spike.

It cannot necessarily tell you whether that spike came from fear, excitement, exertion, or seeing someone you missed.

Data describes part of an experience.

It isn’t the experience.

Human lives contain things that do not fit neatly onto dashboards.

Thank fuck.

Breath Before Metric

That’s something I want to carry into Prāṇāyāma this month.

Yes, we will learn.

Yes, some practices may involve counting.

Yes, technique matters.

But before any of that:

There is a person breathing.

A whole person.

With history.

Context.

Emotion.

A body responding to a real environment.

The breath doesn’t exist separately from that person.

And perhaps that’s one reason presence matters so much.

Presence returns us to experience.

Not:

How am I scoring?

But:

Where am I?

Try Not Measuring Something

Here’s an experiment.

Choose something you usually evaluate.

It doesn’t need to be health-related.

Maybe a walk.

A yoga practice.

A creative activity.

Rest.

Reading.

Whatever.

And once—just once—don’t measure whether it was enough.

Don’t ask whether you did it long enough.

Well enough.

Productively enough.

Don’t turn it into progress.

Just experience it.

If you go for a walk, walk.

If you stretch, stretch.

If you rest, rest.

If you notice your breathing, breathe.

See what happens when there is no score waiting at the end.

Maybe nothing dramatic.

That’s kind of the point.

You Are More Than the Information About You

Data can describe us.

It can help us.

It can warn us.

It can reveal patterns.

But it cannot contain us.

There is no dashboard large enough for a human life.

And I think we need to remember that when wellness culture starts convincing us that every signal coming from the body is another metric awaiting optimization.

Sometimes the breath changes.

Sometimes energy changes.

Sometimes capacity changes.

Sometimes we are uncomfortable.

Sometimes we are beautifully, gloriously fine.

We can notice all of that without immediately converting ourselves into a problem set.

Your body is not a dashboard.

You are not a collection of warning lights.

And presence isn’t the act of monitoring yourself closely enough to prevent anything messy from happening.

Presence is much simpler.

It’s the possibility of being where you are...

long enough to notice what being there actually feels like.

Before the score.

Before the judgment.

Before the optimization.

Before the intervention.

Just you.

Alive.

Breathing.

And perhaps, for one ordinary moment, not requiring improvement.

Namaste.

They wake rested.

They breathe deeply.

They respond instead of react.

They maintain boundaries without ever sounding angry.

They recognize their triggers.

They communicate their needs clearly.

They handle conflict calmly.

They possess a complete collection of coping skills, presumably organized alphabetically in attractive little baskets.

Nothing seems to rattle them for very long.

And if something does?

They have a tool for that.

Read more

I don’t think convenience is the enemy.

In fact, I think convenience can be a gift.

Modern medicine is convenient.

Accessible transportation is convenient.

Online grocery ordering can be life-changing for someone with a disability, chronic illness, or limited mobility.

Technology allows me to teach yoga to people I’ll probably never meet in person. That’s incredibly convenient—and incredibly beautiful.

Convenience, by itself, isn’t the problem.

The question is this:

When does convenience stop serving our values and start replacing them?

I think that’s one of the defining questions of our time.

We’re constantly encouraged to choose what’s faster.

What’s cheaper.

What’s easier.

What’s more efficient.

And sometimes that’s exactly the right choice.

I’m a spoonie.

I have days when ordering groceries online isn’t a luxury—it’s the only realistic option.

I have chronic pain, POTS, asthma, fibromyalgia, arthritis, and a body that occasionally reminds me that it has its own plans for the day.

Choosing the easier path isn’t laziness.

Sometimes it’s wisdom.

Sometimes it’s survival.

That’s why I get uncomfortable when conversations about values become rigid.

Life isn’t lived in absolutes.

It’s lived in context.

The challenge isn’t convenience itself.

The challenge is remembering to ask why we’re choosing it.

Am I ordering dinner because I’m exhausted after a long day and need to preserve the energy I have left?

Or because I’ve stopped paying attention to what my habits are creating?

Am I buying from a large retailer because it’s genuinely my only practical option?

Or because I didn’t want to spend ten extra minutes looking for an alternative?

Neither answer makes me a good person or a bad one.

But they do invite me to stay curious.

I’ve found that curiosity is one of the healthiest spiritual practices I know.

Not certainty.

Not guilt.

Curiosity.

What led me here?

What matters most in this moment?

Is there another way?

Sometimes the answer is no.

Sometimes the answer is yes.

The important thing is that I’m still asking.

There’s another side to this conversation that I don’t think we talk about enough.

Convenience has a way of making us passive.

Algorithms decide what we see.

Autoplay decides what we watch next.

Navigation apps tell us where to drive.

Recommendation engines decide what we buy.

None of those tools are inherently bad.

I use every one of them.

But every time I let something else make a decision for me, I lose a tiny opportunity to practice making intentional choices for myself.

That doesn’t mean rejecting technology.

It means refusing to live on autopilot.

One of the reasons I love both yoga and witchcraft is that neither one lets me stay asleep.

They ask me to pay attention.

To notice my breath.

To notice my body.

To notice my habits.

To notice the stories I’m telling myself.

Awareness always comes before transformation.

Maybe that’s why convenience deserves more attention than it usually gets.

Not because it’s wrong.

Because it’s powerful.

Powerful enough to shape our routines.

Our relationships.

Our spending.

Our priorities.

Even our identities.

So perhaps the goal isn’t to eliminate convenience.

Perhaps it’s simply to remain awake within it.

To choose convenience when it genuinely serves our well-being.

To choose the harder path when that’s what our values require.

And to remember that every decision, no matter how ordinary it seems, is quietly teaching us who we’re becoming.

I don’t think we’ll ever get that balance perfectly right.

I know I won’t.

But maybe that’s the point.

Living with integrity has never meant having all the answers.

It has always meant remaining willing to ask better questions.

And in a world constantly encouraging us not to think too hard about our choices...

That may be one of the most quietly radical things we can do.

It’s a beautiful phrase.

But what does it actually mean?

For years, I think I misunderstood it.

I imagined alignment as a destination—a point where my beliefs, my actions, my work, and my relationships would all fit together so perfectly that I’d never have to question myself again.

I’ve since realized that isn’t alignment.

That’s fantasy.

Real alignment is much messier.

It’s waking up every day and asking the same question over and over again:

Am I living in a way that reflects what I say I believe?

Notice what that question doesn’t ask.

It doesn’t ask whether you’ve done everything perfectly.

It doesn’t ask whether you’ve made flawless choices.

It doesn’t ask whether you’ve found the one completely ethical company, the one perfect solution, or the one correct answer to every complicated issue.

Instead, it asks whether your life is moving in the same direction as your values.

That’s an important distinction.

Because perfection is impossible.

Integrity is a practice.

We’re living in a world where almost every decision comes with tradeoffs.

The shirt we buy.

The food we eat.

The technology we rely on.

The companies we support.

The organizations we donate to.

The media we consume.

The list goes on.

If we demanded absolute certainty before taking any action, we’d become paralyzed.

Nothing would ever be good enough.

Ironically, the pursuit of moral perfection often prevents us from doing genuine good.

This is something I see in wellness spaces, activist spaces, religious communities, and even witchcraft circles.

Someone discovers a product isn’t as ethical as they believed.

A beloved teacher makes a mistake.

A nonprofit they admired falls short of its mission.

A company they trusted changes ownership.

Suddenly, people are left wondering if everything they did before was meaningless.

I don’t think it was.

Because I don’t believe integrity is measured by never making a mistake.

I think it’s measured by what we do when we learn something new.

Do we become defensive?

Or do we become curious?

Do we double down because admitting we were wrong feels uncomfortable?

Or do we adjust our course?

Growth has always required humility.

That’s true in yoga.

It’s true in witchcraft.

It’s true in faith.

It’s true in business.

And it’s true in ordinary life.

One of the greatest gifts any spiritual practice can offer isn’t certainty.

It’s the willingness to remain teachable.

To say,

“I believed this yesterday.”

“I know something different today.”

“So today, I’ll choose differently.”

That isn’t hypocrisy.

That’s growth.

Some people mistake consistency for never changing.

I think consistency is something else entirely.

Consistency is returning to the same core values, even as your understanding deepens.

Compassion.

Justice.

Kindness.

Curiosity.

Generosity.

Community.

Those values don’t have to change.

How we express them almost certainly will.

As we learn more, our actions evolve.

As our circumstances change, our priorities shift.

As we meet people with different lived experiences, our understanding expands.

That’s healthy.

That’s what living traditions have always done.

The danger isn’t changing your mind.

The danger is becoming so attached to being right that you stop listening.

I’ve come to believe that integrity isn’t about reaching a state where every decision is unquestionably pure.

It’s about developing the habit of asking better questions.

Who benefits from this choice?

Who might be harmed?

What information am I missing?

What assumptions am I making?

What would love require here?

Not because those questions always lead to easy answers.

But because they keep us awake.

They prevent us from drifting through life on autopilot.

Whether you identify as a yogi, a witch, a person of faith, an atheist, or none of the above, I suspect the real work is remarkably similar.

Pay attention.

Act with intention.

Learn continuously.

Repair when you’ve caused harm.

Remain humble enough to grow.

Repeat for the rest of your life.

That’s not a checklist.

It’s a practice.

And perhaps that’s what integrity has been all along.

Not perfection.

Not certainty.

Not having all the answers.

Simply the quiet, daily commitment to ensure that the distance between what we believe and how we live becomes just a little bit smaller.

Day by day.

Choice by choice.

Practice by practice.

Because the world doesn’t need more people who claim to have perfect values.

It needs more people willing to live imperfectly, honestly, and courageously in service of the values they hold most dear.

That, to me, is integrity.

And I can’t think of a more worthwhile spiritual practice.

Flexibility.

Fitness.

Maybe stress reduction if they’re feeling generous.

What they probably won’t describe is a spiritual practice rooted in a philosophy thousands of years old.

And they almost certainly won’t describe a word that originally meant something as simple as a seat.

Yet that is exactly where our Sanskrit word for this week begins.

Asana literally translates as “seat.”

Not handstand.

Not downward dog.

Not flexibility.

Not fitness.

Seat.

The irony is that the limb of yoga most visible in modern culture is also one of the most misunderstood.

Today, yoga is often marketed through aesthetics.

Perfect bodies.

Perfect poses.

Perfect leggings.

Perfect lives.

The message is subtle but persistent:

If you become flexible enough, disciplined enough, thin enough, strong enough, balanced enough, then perhaps you’ll finally become the person you’re supposed to be.

But traditional yoga philosophy tells a very different story.

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali defines Asana simply as a posture that is both steady and comfortable.

That definition is remarkably ordinary.

And perhaps that’s precisely why it matters.

Because modern culture thrives on discomfort.

We are encouraged to constantly improve ourselves.

Optimize ourselves.

Fix ourselves.

Reinvent ourselves.

Become newer, better versions of ourselves.

There is always another goal.

Another achievement.

Another metric.

Another standard we have not yet met.

The body becomes a project.

The self becomes a project.

Life becomes a project.

And somewhere along the way, we forget how to simply exist.

Asana offers a challenge to that mindset.

Not because effort is bad.

Not because growth is bad.

Not because ambition is bad.

But because endless striving often disconnects us from the very thing we’re seeking.

Presence.

A posture that is steady and comfortable is not impressive.

It doesn’t generate clicks.

It doesn’t become a viral social media post.

It doesn’t sell miracle solutions.

It simply allows us to be here.

Now.

Fully.

Honestly.

That may sound small.

I would argue it is revolutionary.

Many people spend years trying to escape their bodies.

Sometimes through shame.

Sometimes through perfectionism.

Sometimes through productivity.

Sometimes through distraction.

Sometimes through spiritual bypassing disguised as enlightenment.

The body becomes something to overcome rather than something to inhabit.

Yoga asks us to move in the opposite direction.

Toward embodiment.

Toward awareness.

Toward relationship.

Toward presence.

Toward truth.

And that is why Asana feels particularly important for this month.

July’s broader theme is Freedom, Faith, and Embodied Truth.

The word freedom is often discussed politically.

Legally.

Socially.

Those conversations matter.

But freedom also exists on a deeply personal level.

Freedom is the ability to exist without constantly performing.

Freedom is the ability to occupy space without apology.

Freedom is the ability to inhabit your body without shame.

Freedom is the ability to move through the world without feeling required to earn your humanity.

That kind of freedom begins with presence.

It begins with awareness.

It begins with sitting down in the reality of your own life and deciding to meet it honestly.

Which brings us back to the original meaning of Asana.

A seat.

Not because sitting is magical.

Not because posture itself is sacred.

But because before transformation can occur, we must first arrive.

We must become willing to stop running.

Stop performing.

Stop proving.

Stop pretending.

And simply sit with ourselves.

That sounds easy.

For many people, it is one of the hardest things they will ever do.

Because when we become still, we hear things.

We hear our fears.

We hear our grief.

We hear our hopes.

We hear our truths.

We hear the parts of ourselves we’ve been avoiding.

Yet we also hear something else.

Wisdom.

Resilience.

Compassion.

Authenticity.

The quiet voice that has been waiting patiently beneath all the noise.

Perhaps that is the real purpose of Asana.

Not flexibility.

Not fitness.

Not achievement.

But creating a stable place from which we can finally hear ourselves.

And in a world that profits from our disconnection, that may be one of the most radical acts imaginable.

Reflection Questions

• What messages have you received about what your body “should” look like?

• How has performance culture influenced your relationship with yourself?

• What helps you feel present and grounded?

• What truths become easier to hear when you slow down?

This month we’ll explore Asana not as a collection of shapes, but as an invitation into deeper relationship with ourselves.

Because before we can change the world, we must first learn how to arrive fully within our own lives.

Being busy is often presented as evidence of importance.

Being overwhelmed is framed as evidence of dedication.

Being exhausted is interpreted as proof of commitment.

The implication is clear:

Read more

If you’ve ever caught yourself postponing happiness until everything is fixed, this week’s content is for you.

Happy Pride Month, Witchlings. 🏳️‍🌈

June has arrived, bringing with it the vibrant colors, fierce courage, joyful celebration, and hard-won history of Pride Month. For many people, Pride is a celebration. For others, it is a protest. For me, it is both. It is deeply personal, deeply spiritual, and deeply rooted in the values that guide my life.

As many of you know, I wear many hats. I am a Navy veteran. I am a yoga teacher. I am an ordained minister. I am a practicing witch who has been walking this path for three decades. I am a wife, a business owner, and a community advocate. But the role that has shaped me most is being a mom.

I am the proud mother of three amazing young adults, one of whom identifies as non-binary. Over the years, our family has also become a safe harbor for many others who needed a place where they could simply be themselves. Some stayed for a season. Some became family forever. Our home has always been built on a simple foundation: everyone deserves to be loved, respected, and accepted exactly as they are.

As a witch, I have never understood the idea that there is only one right way to exist. Nature itself teaches us otherwise. The moon moves through many phases. The seasons shift and change. No two trees grow alike. No two flowers bloom in exactly the same way. Diversity is woven into the fabric of creation. Why should humanity be any different?

As a yoga teacher, I often talk about living authentically. Yoga is not about becoming someone else. It is about becoming more fully yourself. It is about removing the layers of fear, expectation, and conditioning that keep us from living honestly. Pride, to me, embodies that same truth. It is the courage to stand in your authenticity and declare that your existence is worthy, valuable, and sacred.

As a veteran, I believe that freedom should belong to everyone. My oath was to defend the principles of liberty and equality. Those values did not stop mattering when I left the military. If anything, they matter now more than ever. When members of the LGBTQIA+ community face discrimination, exclusion, violence, or attempts to erase their identities, that is not simply a political issue to me. It is a human issue.

Pride began as resistance. It began because people refused to accept that they should live in fear or shame. That history matters. The rights many enjoy today were won because brave people stood up and demanded to be treated with dignity. We honor that legacy by continuing to protect one another, support one another, and speak up when others are being harmed.

This month, I invite all of us to reflect on what authenticity means in our own lives. Where are we shrinking ourselves to make others comfortable? Where are we hiding pieces of who we are? What might become possible if we gave ourselves permission to show up more fully as ourselves?

To every member of the LGBTQIA+ community reading this: you are loved. You are valued. You are needed. Your existence is not a problem to be solved. Your identity is not a debate. You are a beautiful expression of the sacred diversity of life itself.

To allies: thank you for showing up. Continue listening. Continue learning. Continue speaking up when it matters. Allyship is not a label. It is a practice.

And to everyone in this community, whether you’ve been here for years or just found your way here recently, know that you are welcome in this space. You belong here.

Throughout Pride Month, our livestreams, classes, and guided meditations will continue to center themes of self-love, courage, authenticity, and belonging. Together, we will create space for healing, celebration, and connection.

Because the truth is simple:

You deserve to be exactly who you are.

And that, my friends, is sacred.

Blessed Pride, Witchlings.

With love,

Di the Yoga Witch

🏳️‍🌈 Spread love. Spread joy. Spread kindness. Remember: you are loved, you are wanted, you are needed, and you have a purpose.

More productivity.

More information.

More commitments.

More content.

More pressure.

More urgency.

The assumption is often that success, happiness, and fulfillment are found through addition.

Yet many wisdom traditions teach something different.

They teach discernment.

They teach simplicity.

They teach the importance of creating space.

This week’s HeartFire theme is Saucha, and while the word is often translated as purity or cleanliness, I find myself returning to a different interpretation:

Creating supportive conditions.

Making room.

Not because emptiness is inherently virtuous.

Because attention is limited.

Energy is limited.

Time is limited.

Every commitment occupies space.

Every habit occupies space.

Every belief occupies space.

Every expectation occupies space.

And eventually we are forced to ask:

Does this still serve the life I am trying to build?

That question is not always comfortable.

Sometimes we discover that we’ve been carrying things out of habit rather than intention.

Sometimes we discover that what once served us has become a burden.

Sometimes we discover that growth requires release.

Over the coming week we’ll explore physical, mental, emotional, digital, and sacred space.

Not in pursuit of perfection.

In pursuit of clarity.

Because clarity often begins where clutter ends.

And the willingness to create space may be one of the most courageous acts of self-care available to us.

Too many expectations.
Too many obligations.
Too much emotional responsibility.
Too much hypervigilance.
Too much pressure to remain endlessly functional no matter how depleted you actually are.

And honestly?
I think many people have been living this way for so long that they no longer recognize how heavy their lives have become.

Overholding becomes identity.

People become accustomed to:
managing everyone’s emotions,
anticipating conflict,
preventing disappointment,
maintaining relationships,
holding families together,
stabilizing chaos,
remaining emotionally available,
and carrying responsibilities that were never meant to belong to one human nervous system alone.

And because many people were praised for overfunctioning, the exhaustion often becomes invisible.

The reliable one.
The strong one.
The helper.
The caretaker.
The person who can “handle it.”

But human beings are not infinite-resource systems.

Eventually the nervous system begins communicating the cost:
burnout,
shutdown,
chronic tension,
fatigue,
brain fog,
resentment,
anxiety,
irritability,
emotional numbness,
difficulty resting,
difficulty relaxing,
difficulty even recognizing what safety feels like anymore.

Because when people spend years carrying too much, the body learns to live in permanent bracing posture.

And that kind of survival adaptation changes people.

Aparigraha reminds us that release is not failure.

And honestly?
I think many people desperately need to hear that.

Release is not weakness.
Release is not selfishness.
Release is not abandoning responsibility.

Sometimes release is survival.

Sometimes the most sacred thing a person can do is loosen their grip on roles, obligations, identities, and expectations that are actively consuming them.

Not every burden deserves permanent residency inside your nervous system.
Not every relationship deserves unlimited access to your energy.
Not every expectation deserves lifelong self-sacrifice.

And perhaps one of the hardest truths many people must confront is this:
just because you can carry something does not mean you were ever meant to carry it alone indefinitely.

Brahmacharya asks us to steward our life force intentionally.
Aparigraha asks us to release excess.

Together they create a powerful question:
What would your life feel like if you stopped carrying everything at once?

And honestly?
For many people, even imagining that feels unfamiliar.

Because overholding often becomes tangled up with love, identity, safety, usefulness, and worth.

But exhaustion is not proof of devotion.
Self-erasure is not proof of care.
Burnout is not proof of moral value.

Human beings deserve sustainability too.

And maybe healing begins the moment we finally stop asking:
“How much more can I carry?”
and start asking:
“What am I finally allowed to set down?”

And honestly?
I think many people have internalized this so deeply that they no longer recognize burnout as a warning sign.
They recognize it as identity.

People introduce themselves through exhaustion now.

Busy.
Overwhelmed.
Burned out.
Stretched thin.
Running on fumes.
Holding everything together.
Barely functioning.
Completely depleted.

And instead of asking why so many people are living this way, modern systems often reward it.

Workplaces reward overextension.
Families reward self-sacrifice.
Social systems reward endless emotional labor.
Even spiritual spaces sometimes romanticize depletion by framing self-destruction as service, devotion, or enlightenment.

But relationships, communities, systems, and identities that require self-erasure to survive are not sustainable.

Human beings were never meant to function as infinite emotional fuel sources for everyone around them.

Brahmacharya asks us to think carefully about where our life force is going.
Not from punishment.
Not from shame.
From stewardship.

Where does your energy go every day?
What restores it?
What drains it?
What relationships nourish reciprocity?
What expectations survive only because you continuously sacrifice yourself to maintain them?

And Aparigraha asks another difficult question:
What are you still gripping because you fear who you might become if you finally let it go?

For many people, exhaustion itself becomes familiar.
Predictable.
Even strangely comforting in its familiarity.

Because if we stop overfunctioning…
if we stop caretaking…
if we stop proving our worth through depletion…
then we are forced to confront who we are underneath survival mode.

And honestly?
That can feel terrifying.

But burnout is not proof of love.
Self-destruction is not proof of devotion.
Exhaustion is not proof of moral worth.

Your humanity deserves more than endless extraction.

You deserve relationships that do not consume you completely.
Communities that allow reciprocity.
Spirituality that leaves room for humanity.
Work that does not require your nervous system to live in permanent emergency mode.

And maybe healing begins the moment we stop asking:
“How much more can I sacrifice?”
and start asking:
“What would sustainability actually look like for me?”

What if boundaries are not selfishness?

What if releasing what harms us is not failure?

Brahmacharya and Aparigraha together create a deeply human invitation:
build a life your nervous system can survive living.

Not merely a life that looks productive from the outside.

Modern culture rewards depletion because exhausted people are easier to exploit.
Yoga philosophy asks us to become conscious enough to interrupt that pattern.

To notice where energy leaks.
To notice where fear creates grasping.
To notice where guilt keeps us overextended.
To notice where scarcity convinces us to cling to what no longer serves us.

Healing begins when we stop measuring our worth through exhaustion.