You never know when the breakthrough will come.
For ages, I struggled with arm balances — the mechanics defy physics. How could I tuck knees behind elbows, lift feet off the floor, and rely only on palms and fingers to prevent a face-plant? Madness!
But each week, a teacher flirted with that possibility. “We’ll be here a few moments,” she’d say to a room of squatting yogis. “If Crow is in your practice, enter it now. If not, give it a try!” Grunting commenced.
My feet slumped like cement. Come on, just an inch! I’d mutter to the mat. Then, This’ll never work.
Week after week, each awkward attempt was adding up, though I did not know it. I could not predict which class or studio or year might offer the magic where my arms and hands could grasp the angles required. I fumbled blindly toward a simulacrum of the pose. I felt silly.
But one day, after a decade of grunting, it did work. I squealed as my toes fought gravity. Then plopped down. I dared not jinx my luck.
Neither weekly practice — yoga nor writing — tells me in advance how much preparation will lead to the next leap forward. All I can do is show up. Feet on mat; butt in chair. Over and over.
Until one day, I fly.
A nudge may be all you need.
Every year or so, I take a 24-hour trip to Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Mass. These short stays pause my daily grind, giving me a chance to reset. By evening, my internal hum quiets as I watch dusk and then darkness settle atop the hilly Berkshire treeline.
Once, while at Kripalu, a transformation came in a flash.
I was extended in a side-angle pose, left elbow resting on bent leg, right arm stretched overhead. We’d been holding the position too long. My quad shook. The teacher, a shaman by trade, rambled about spiritual principles, seemingly unaware of the caving bodies around which he ambled.
Walking by me, he tugged the tip of my middle finger an eighth of an inch. It should have done nothing. It was nothing.
My entire skeleton realigned.
As if he’d repositioned each joint, I felt re-stacked. I’d barely moved. The reassembly was internal, miniscule, hidden. Yet infinite.
This happens in writing, too. I stare at a scene or sentence for days, knowing it’s not right, unable to detect why. No idea how to fix it. I might start hacking aimlessly.
If I’m lucky, though — or if I have a gifted teacher — I can let the passage sit long enough, in its natural pose, until I see the nudge it needs. The teeny speck of a tweak that could transform the entire thing.
The trick is to wait.
It’s not always about what you think it is.
The consistency of practicing yoga — and writing — lets big and small shifts arrive unannounced. Sometimes the outcome itself surprises us.
We’re all familiar with photos of impossible contortionists smirking blissfully in Tree Pose. In the U.S., yoga has long been about external shapes. For many, the promise of a twisty figure gets you in the door.
But, when you stick around, you discover the intent of this ancient system. Yoga means union. Union of breath and movement. Of body and spirit. Self and universe.
If you come for bendy pretzeling, you get it. Eventually. But you may find contortions lead to something else. They’re about yoking inhales to relaxed exhales. About clearing the mind as flesh and muscle move. Whether you’re stuck in Chair Pose or sitting in chair yoga, that breath can unhinge something seated even deeper.
When we write, we create meaning. Sometimes, art. Often, these efforts reveal something we did not see or imagine when we first sat down. Only by tackling that topic do we come to witness, and release, what our writing is truly about.
For me, writing means excavation. I find out what’s in my soul by putting words on the page. Linking intention with movement leads to discovery. Sometimes, that physical expression unearths something inexpressible.
Don’t do it how your neighbor does it. But do get neighbors.
Imposter syndrome is cliché, but real. It’s easy to envy the writing group dude who snags a literary agent or the MFA alum whose subpar novel rockets to bestseller status.
My imposter syndrome tells me I’ll never be good enough to finish my memoir. Which may be why essays started looking so good.
This unwarranted paranoia strikes on the mat, too. I’m reminded not to compare myself to a neighbor. Not to glance at ladies whose tricep curves make me weep.
Comparison goes both ways. In a studio, I may feel inferior, but at my suburban gym, where I’m the youngest, I fight to stay humble. I resist pulling show-offy tricks like Flying Pigeon or Bird of Paradise. My intellect hushes my ego.
Ironically, the presence of others helps me stay centered, forcing me to focus on my own eight square feet of rubber. My practice is about me. In the now.
When writing, I am alone. It can be tempting to reach out for social media, where curated successes abound, and scroll an unrealistic picture of others’ writing and publishing processes.
So now, I seek partners in that process. I’ve taken workshops and joined a writing group. Community is coming, little by slow, as I gather proper neighbors. No matter which pose they’re each in, it’s reassuring to know their mats are lined up next to mine.
Not practicing also makes progress.
That not-good-enough voice insists I don’t spend enough time on either writing or yoga. Since first landing on a mat in 2005, my last semester of college, my practice has waxed and waned.
There were years I could walk three minutes to my city studio, religiously attending heart-pounding hip-hop sessions, crammed mat-to-mat by other lithesome twentysomethings.
There was the year I joined Mysore-style Ashtanga, unrolling my mat at 5:30 a.m. to a hushed room, Ujjayi breaths the only sound guiding our independent rhythms.
Some years, like the one (okay, the five) after my daughter was born, I was lucky if I made it to the mat twice a season.
Each time I’ve taken a break, whether for weeks or months or years, I am delighted to discover I can pick up where I left off — not at 100%, certainly, but far from zero. (Maybe 75?)
Most importantly, it’s in these off-times that something, somehow, shifts. After a month of not practicing, I find I can suddenly roll over my toes heading from Upward-Facing to Downward Dog, having struggled forever with the logistics. A few classes skipped, and my hip rotates at an angle it hadn’t before. During these essential in-between times, my muscles and my joints seem to work out the nuances on their own.
Writers often hear we must write every day. I get why. Nothing concrete comes from procrastination and daydreams. We can’t edit unwritten words.
But, we need rest. Our bodies and brains jigsaw things together while our attention wanders elsewhere. We come back to projects refreshed, maybe with more energy than before.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is let it breathe.
Talia Vestri is an emerging creative nonfiction writer, currently working on a book-length memoir. Her personal essays have been published in Cognoscenti and Brevity Blog. Talia earned her PhD in English from Boston University and is a teaching professor in the writing program at Northeastern University. Her academic writing has appeared in Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, Persuasions On-Line, European Romantic Review and other journals. Talia lives in the Boston area with her family, where they enjoy hiking through New England forests, sunning on the Atlantic coast and playing competitive board games at the kitchen table.
