When I first started practicing power yoga, my focus was all about getting the poses right. I would rent videos from the library in between studio classes, determined to learn the mechanics of each pose. I didn’t want to show up to class looking like I didn’t know what I was doing. One moment, though, stands out vividly. After falling out of a headstand in class, I felt so mortified that I avoided attempting the pose publicly for a long time. The embarrassment clung to me, but looking back, that experience was one of my first lessons in humility and self-compassion.
These are the early layers of the practice—the ones where we often strive for perfection, avoid making mistakes, and stay within our comfort zones. In the beginning, yoga can feel like a physical endeavor, a challenge to master postures and push the body further. I practiced for years with this mindset, always chasing the next “harder” pose, trying to achieve more. And isn’t that how we’re often conditioned? To do more, to have more, to be more?
But power yoga holds something far deeper than physical mastery. The real work, the transformative work, begins when we move beyond effort and force. As we clear those initial layers—the striving, the self-judgment, and the fear of falling—we find access to something extraordinary: our true selves. The breakthrough doesn’t happen in the perfection of a headstand or the depth of a backbend. It happens in moments of radical acceptance, when we allow ourselves to be fully present with who we are, as we are.
This December, I invite you to join me for Meditate and Celebrate, a month-long journey to slow down, connect, and honor the present moment. Together, we’ll carve out time each day to meditate and celebrate life—not for what we achieve, but for the simple beauty of being here now.
Let’s embrace the radical power of acceptance and celebrate the moments that make up our lives. After all, the most profound growth in yoga—and in life—often comes not from doing more, but from allowing ourselves to be.