Reflections on a Year of Yoga

by Heidi Tobe

Heidi and her dog Ivy on Amelia Island ,Florida, September 2019.

Heidi was the big winner of our 2019 January Challenge. Here she shares her story of growth and transformation on and off the mat.

Almost instantaneously after winning Blue Sky’s 2019 January Challenge (and free year of unlimited yoga), I found myself unintentionally setting goals in my head: perfect crow; learn to do a headstand; go to X number of classes; lose X number of pounds. The list goes on. In that moment, I caught myself making yoga a means to a number of ends of tangible, physical accomplishments. I took a pause and spent some time in reflection on what the purpose of yoga is in my life and what I wanted this amazing gift of yoga to be about. While goals of achieving certain poses are certainly not bad, I quickly realized this wasn’t the focus I really wanted for the year. I decided I did want: to make yoga a regular practice — attending at 2-4 times per week on average, choosing flexibility over rigidity — and to focus on the mental benefits of yoga, knowing that physical benefits would inherently follow. This kept my all too competitive side from kicking into gear and let me keep yoga as the thing that made me fall in love with it in the first place: a sacred space for myself with no expectation other than to show up exactly as I am.

So how have the last 12+ months of yoga been? Where have I grown? What have I learned?

Honestly, I’m not sure I know the answers to all of those things yet, but here are a few reflections from the past year:

The Practice

Yoga has become a regular part of my life. I’ve averaged 3 classes/week and it’s been a constant that I look forward to. It truly has become a part of my ‘self-care’ routine, both physically and mentally. For the most part, this means maintaining a standard practice regardless of what is happening in my life and around me. Sometimes it means taking an extra class, knowing it is what I need that day despite my brain telling me that I’ve already “done enough” that week. Other times, it means hitting my alarm clock and making the conscious decision to sleep an extra hour instead, knowing that’s what my body needs. Where formerly rigid patterns of thinking would have tried to shame me into going, yoga has taught me to truly check in with my mind and body to identify what I need that day.

The Growth

Spoiler alert: I haven’t perfected crow, and I’m nowhere near being able to get into headstand. I intentionally shy away from the more ‘power yoga’ type classes. While those nagging voices of pride try to tell me what I “should” be doing and where I “should” be at in my yoga practice, I find it much easier to squash those voices now and to let affirming, life-giving truth prevail than I did a year ago. While achieving more challenging poses is something I hope to work to at some point, it doesn’t have to be today or even this year. And while there may be a time I eagerly show up to Blue Sky’s faster paced classes, for now it’s not where I look to get in my daily workout, but where I come to get out of my mind and into my body, no expectations. 

My visible progress has been subtle — going an inch or two further in chaturanga before dropping my knees; using my core to protect the lower back; twisting just a little deeper in a pose. Perhaps most importantly, though, the greater progress has been being more deeply in tune with my limits. There are more moments both when I push myself a little further as well as moments when I choose to scale back regardless of what my mat mates are doing beside me. Just last night, I was finishing a second yoga class and chose to drop into child’s pose on a few occasions. A year ago shame would have caused me to either push through when it wasn’t what my body needed or to feel embarrassed at the choice I made to go to child’s pose; today that isn’t the case. I know the decisions I make on my mat now are decisions made of one who knows herself more fully. Yoga truly is so much more about the process than the product. While my pride would like to tell me otherwise, my lived experience recognizes the truth in that statement.

The Benefit

2019 started off challenging and carried hardships and heartaches throughout the year. I’m not sure whether it was yoga, regular cardio outside the studio, personal growth, or sheer luck, but these challenges didn’t tear me down in the way I imagine they would have in previous years. Don’t get me wrong, there were some excruciating, trying moments. But where I would have let these get the best of me in the past, I let myself feel the feelings these trials brought with them and continue living in the moment and moving forward. I do think yoga played an integral part in my response to various instances throughout 2019. In yoga, we are taught — and physically practice — that nothing is permanent. Discomfort and pain pass. While we may not be able to control events that happen to us, we can choose how to respond. We can breathe through the discomfort and come out the other end just a little bit stronger for the next time a challenge arises. A year ago, I could understand these words on an intellectual level. Today, I know them on a more intimate and experiential level (though there’s always so much more room for growth).

Thank you to Blue Sky, to Annie and Erin and all of the other teachers who create this sacred space. Thank you for the tangible — 175 classes with 15 different teachers — and even more so for the intangible. Thank you to my mat mates, some who have become dear friends. This year of yoga has been one of the greatest gifts I’ve been given. I’m excited for what 2020 has in store for each of us on and off the mat. 

Men On the Mat Series: Meet Corey Axelson

In honor of Father's Day being in June, we decided it was high time we celebrate the men who join us on the mat. It is interesting that yoga, once a practice exclusively for men, is now — at least in the U.S. — dominated mainly by women and many men feel that yoga is not for them because…

~I’m not flexible enough ~It’s not challenging enough ~I know how to breathe ~I want to get stronger, etc.

While we know we can dispel these myths and/or prove them wrong, we felt it would be better to let our guys speak for themselves. And because we know that representation matters, we would like to represent some of the men who have stepped outside of their own comfort zones to try something new and found a home here at Blue Sky Yoga. Maybe, our guys will help convince the men in your life to check out a yoga class or two with you!

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Corey is always good for a smile and a positive look to any day. He’s also up for anything! One time he came to a Yoga Nidra class not even knowing what it was, but just saw there was a class and at a time he could show up, so he said, “okay, let’s try this out.” He says savasana is his favorite pose, so we’re just going to assume he loved it!

1. How did you discover Blue Sky Yoga?

   I googled yoga studios near me, and it was the second place I tried.

2. How long have you been doing yoga? What brought you to the practice?

   Almost a year!  I started late July and I've tried to come to class consistently since.

   (Corey, did you know that as of this publication, you have attended 173.25 hours of yoga since you started with us on July 24th 2018? )

3. If you were a yoga pose what would you be and why?

   A handstand/Adho Mukha Vrksasana, because for whatever reason, that's become my "goal" pose to work towards.

   (And didn’t I just see you doing one on Monday?)

4. What is your FAVORITE asana?

   Savasana - it always feels good to relax after a class and just sink into my mat.

5. What are some changes that you have noticed in yourself as you've continued on your yoga journey (mind/body/spirit)?

   My mind is a lot more calm, and I enjoy getting on my mat and just being in the moment.

6. What would you say to someone who is scared to try yoga or who doesn't think yoga is for them?

   There are classes for everyone, from a basic's class to an advanced vinyasa, it's all just yoga and everyone's just coming to improve themselves.

7. Describe an interesting fact about yourself. The weirder the better (something other than yoga).

   I used to play chess competitively.

8. When you are not on your mat, what other things do you do to occupy your time?

   I just got a promotion at work - I'm starting to manage the Ebar at Nordstrom, and there's so much to learn and delve into; I’m taking that one day at a time.

9. Anything else?

   Everyone's just trying to better themselves, and there shouldn't be any pressure to be any better than anyone else, just try and be better than who you were yesterday.

Death, Struggle & Vulnerability: The Birth of a Yogi

What does being a man mean? What does being a male yogi mean? I was struggling with this question. I closed my eyes and asked my dad to write this for me.

I might not have ever wrote such a “hippie dippy” opener (his words not mine) to an essay before yoga…before my dad died. It can be so difficult as a man, to embrace the vulnerability of a yoga practice. Stepping into a studio where you might not be the best in the room. This can be incredibly discouraging. But, my dad always told me to try my best. That’s yoga. Try your best.

My first yoga experience was around the time I was living with my dad in our home in Affton, when I was getting ready to go to school for acting in Northern California. I started working out and running that summer because I was out of shape. I knew my new school would be physically demanding, so I wanted to start preparing before I packed up my things and moved away on my own for the first time in my life. Yoga was anxiety producing for me in those early days of practice. I thought the only point was to sync your breath with movement and that I would be judged by everyone else in the room if they noticed I was failing miserably at this task.

My dad was taken to the hospital in late July after falling in the parking lot outside a Shop N’ Save. While in the hospital he contracted pneumonia, fell into a coma, and died a few weeks later.

A month after his funeral, I packed up all my belongings and drove to California to study at Dell’Arte International: School of Physical Theatre. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning we practiced yoga as an all school daily practice. My mind was so busy during those days, especially in savasana. I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering.

I loved my school. I loved the physical training. I met lifelong friends that were there when I needed a shoulder to cry on, to talk about my dad. Over the next couple years, I also developed a social drinking problem, thinking I was living a stress-filled life--where I ignored my health, both mentally and physically--with no place to call home, and a constant whirlwind of trying to find myself, crashed hard. My anxiety and depression were at record highs.

A year ago, I came back to St. Louis, and at the recommendation of my therapist again developed a yoga practice as one of many tools to deal with my anxiety and depression. Last fall, during my final semester of undergrad, my personal practice grew. I had been reading books on being present, and eventually, I gave up trying to be perfect on my mat. I gave up trying to get it right and just do my best. That meant giving up listening to breathe cues for weeks at a time and breathing as I needed. It meant letting my mind spiral in savasana knowing that I would get through it. Trying my best.

My journey to this moment could be seen as a man’s struggle with grief. Living in a world where openly struggling, being vulnerable, where being emotional as a man is seen as weak. The world of yoga does not hold such norms as truth. Yoga allows me strength. Yoga allows me vulnerability. Yoga allows me flexibility. Yoga allows me safety. Yoga allows me tools to survive — tools to thrive. Yoga allows me love. As a man, no, as a human that’s everything to me.

My dad was the first in his family to get a college degree; I got my BA in Communications last fall from his alma mater, UMSL, and then went to India to get my yoga teacher certification. When my dad died, he had been sober for 30 years; I have been sober for over a year now. My father never tried yoga, or the physical aspect of being on a mat (asana). But yoga is so much more than that. And, my father was so much more than that. He inspired the best in his children and in others. He held space for emotions and vulnerability. He was unconditionally loving. He was a yogi as much as anyone. They say the father lives on in the son. So in a way, my father has now tried asana, too. And I gotta say, he loves it!