Most parents have a story about their toddler that concludes with an emergency room visit, but not everyone can say they were in a position to remain (mostly) calm throughout the experience. 

“I 100% credit my yoga practice for staying (mostly) calm when my toddler stuck a coat hanger through his eyelid (!),” Sarah Ezrin writes in her recent book, The Yoga of Parenting: 10 Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect with Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself.

And although her yoga practice looked very different before she was a mother of two—what was once a two-hour vinyasa practice perhaps now looks more like a number of minutes on a bolster—Sarah, a world-renowned yoga teacher, assures us, it’s okay.  

“If we will remind ourselves that yoga is just not in regards to the poses but how we work with our mind, then perhaps we might be lots kinder and more realistic about what our practice looks like as of late,” she writes. 

To Sarah, parenting is yoga. 

“The foundation of yoga is actually about connection (the basis word, yuj, means ‘to attach’),” Sarah explains. “That implies that anything we do with a focused mind and whole heart is yoga.”

The Yoga of Parenting is just not a handbook on parenting, but relatively an abundant well of resources. It’s a deeply personal reflection of Sarah’s experience as a parent and longtime yoga teacher, and a must-read for folks and future parents alike. 

Each chapter examines a yoga-based concept and features a pose, showing how each the yogic principles and postures apply to parenting. Sarah weaves in breathwork, meditations, and exercises, and forms a full Yoga of Parenting sequence from Tadasana to Savasana. 

Sarah asks her readers: How can we fill our kids’s cups if we cannot fill our own?

Self-care is self-preservation, and as a parent, it’s essential to create the space to care for yourself if you wish to show up whole heartedly to your kids. Sarah emphasizes the importance of making healthy boundaries, because sometimes saying no to something means saying yes to yourself. 

For Sarah, it’s all about her early morning routine. She chooses to get up before the remaining of her family so she will be able to meditate, write, enjoy her tea hot, and perhaps even cuddle her dog. 

“Getting up early gives me time to fill my cup,” she said.

Sarah writes with honesty, compassion, and a keen awareness of yogic philosophy, helping parents decelerate before reacting to their children. As she says, “presence = awareness.” 

She grounds the book in personal reflections and experiences from other parents, reminding us to take a deep breath, that we aren’t alone, and that we’re perfectly imperfect. 

Parenthood is a yoga practice and perhaps even a spiritual experience. Because similar to an inhale and an exhale, we learn to carry space for our kids while concurrently learning to let go. Yoga reminds us as parents that every part is temporary. 

“As our kids change, we’re asked to alter, too,” Sarah said. “Watching our kids grow up asks us to embrace the cycle of life and death over and all over again while also letting go of resistance around those changes.” 

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Cameron Joy Machell is a author and journalist covering yoga, travel, and wellness. All the time planning her next adventure, she has chased the Northern Lights across Iceland, camped under the celebs within the Sahara Desert, and sipped kava with chiefs in Fiji. When she’s not traveling, you will discover her at home in Latest England, within the garden or on her mat.