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For the last several years, yoga teacher and author Sarah Ezrin has generously shared her experiences, insights, challenges, and courage with all of us in her regular articles for Yoga Journal. You possibly can proceed to learn from her here, although her sharing of life wisdom continues with the publication of her first book, The Yoga of Parenting: Ten Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect With Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself, from which the below is excerpted. 

I actually have been meditating for nearly thirty years and practicing asana, the physical practice, for over twenty and I can say undoubtedly that essentially the most advanced yoga I actually have ever done is raising children.

I actually have never been more stretched, more challenged, or more strengthened nor have I felt more ecstasy or been more connected than I actually have raising my two sons. And I used to wrap my legs behind my head every morning before coffee!

When we predict of yoga, we regularly picture someone doing a flowery pose on a beach, however the physical practice is only a tiny piece of this incredible tradition. Yoga is way more about how we live our lives than what shapes we make with our body. It’s about unity and connection—and who do we would like to be more connected to than our kids? (Well, most days anyway).

I actually have witnessed firsthand how this ancient practice changes how people interact with and behave on the planet. I actually have seen how much kinder, more compassionate, calm, and balanced parents who practice yoga may be.

And I actually have also seen how incredibly human yoga practitioner parents still are too; regardless of what number of spiritual texts we read or hours we sit for meditation, or what number of silent retreats we go on, we still yell at our children. We still cry once we are overwhelmed, and we still need assistance sometimes (okay, plenty of the time). I mean, even the Dalai Lama admits to getting offended, and he doesn’t have children.

The reality is we’re all works in progress: “Perfectly imperfect,” because the saying goes. And parenting has been and all the time shall be essentially the most difficult personal work a few of us will ever do.

Possibly that’s the reason so many spiritual paths encourage renunciation. It is far harder to achieve a realized state when your three-year-old is destroying your own home and your newborn is scream-crying in the opposite room.

But this can be why parenthood may be the last word spiritual experience. It isn’t any coincidence that I wrote this book while learning to navigate the dynamic of raising each a toddler and a baby. We now have a possibility to learn far more about ourselves once we interact with the world than sitting quietly in a meditative state. As Hunter Clarke-Fields, the creator of Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Reactive Cycle of Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids, says, “Six months with a preschooler may be more practical than years alone on a mountain top.” Adding, “It’d just be the fast track to enlightenment.”

If we’re willing to decelerate and take a look at our stuff, parenthood can provide a strong lens for us to get to know ourselves more deeply. Very similar to once we are on our yoga mats, it’s a place in our lives where we will observe our tendencies and learn tips on how to shift our behaviors.

Every thing you have to know is inside you. Yoga won’t transform you into an important parent because spoiler alert: you already are. As an alternative, yoga will enable you to rediscover that very same unconditional love you’re feeling toward your kids for yourself.

And while you come back to yourself, while you feel connected and whole, you’ll find a way to approach your loved ones with a focused mind and an entire heart.

That is yoga.

That is parenthood.

We find out about ourselves intimately on the yoga mat. It is sort of a laboratory where we will observe our tendencies and experiment with our responses in a protected setting. One in every of the things we get to have a look at is how we respond in a heightened state. This seems to especially arise in balance poses or fast-moving flows.

That feeling of falling out of Vrksasana (Tree Pose) is the very same feeling we get when our kid gives us an attitude, or we lose our patience with them. Learning what our body does and what it appears like in a heightened state may help us learn tips on how to calm it down more quickly.

Stand at the highest of your mat in Tadasana. Take a moment to get grounded and present. Do not forget that that is the blueprint for all other postures.

Pick up your right knee and place your right foot in your inner left thigh above your knee or down by your ankle and calf.

It’s possible you’ll need a wall for balance. If not, have each arms barely away out of your torso, together with your fingertips pointing down. Reach down through your arms to release any tension in your upper back or neck.

Once you’re feeling regular, begin to play together with your balance. For those who are looking down, look forward or up. It’s possible you’ll even try closing your eyes. You may also play with lifting your arms overhead. Allow the push of sensation to ride through you while you teeter. See for those who can stick with it, even when it means allowing yourself to fall.

Before repeating in your second side, take a moment in Tadasana to ground and are available back to center. Observe how long it takes on your heart rate to settle and so that you can feel grounded once more.

Adapted from The Yoga of Parenting by Sarah Ezrin © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.

(Photo: Shambhala Publications)

About Our Contributor

Sarah Ezrin is an creator, world-renowned yoga educator, popular Instagram influencer, and mama based within the San Francisco Bay Area. Her willingness to be unabashedly honest and vulnerable along together with her innate wisdom make her writing, yoga classes, and social media great sources of healing and inner peace for many individuals. Sarah is changing the world, teaching self-love one person at a time. She can be the creator of The Yoga of Parenting. You possibly can follow her on Instagram at @sarahezrinyoga and TikTok at @sarahezrin.