Hi friends, I’m Michelle from Opting Out, based in Brighton, UK. Here I share regular posts on slow living, rest, and opting out of burnout culture, plus my weekly Weekend Mood Board of what’s currently inspiring me. Paid subscribers also get access to our asynchronous Slow Reading Group (our new read is“The Restorative Rebel: Memoirs and Musings on Internalised Capitalism” by Dani Bicknell), yoga nidra audios and pre-recorded restorative and yin yoga classes.
It’s my dream to create a community of misfits, questioners and resters. Are you in? ✨
(I can no longer do this pose, and I’m ok with that!)
Thirty years ago, I stepped onto a yoga mat for the first time. I didn’t attend a class, I bought BKS Iyengar’s Light on Yoga (which I still have), and started working my way through the week by week course at the back. It was 1996, I was an undergraduate. I was experiencing symptoms of PTSD and attempting to recover from an eating disorder. My nervous system was extremely dysregulated and I was very disconnected from my body and emotions.
I couldn’t have known then that yoga would become less something I did, and more a place I would return to, over and over, in many different iterations, across seasons of change, loss, joy, injury, birth, grief, and becoming.
Yoga doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s practice.
Meditation is as important as asana — if not more.
Yoga evolves as we do; it is not meant to stay static.
A runner’s body in my twenties needed something very different than my almost 50yr old menopausal body does now.
Pregnancy yoga taught me how to rest.
Postpartum taught me patience, with healing, with strength, with myself.
Major surgery taught me humility, and how to begin again from zero.
Perimenopause has taught me to prioritise nervous system regulation over achievement.
I no longer practise to shape my body, I practise to fully inhabit it.
Gentle does not mean ineffective.
Subtle practices can be profoundly powerful.
Yin and restorative yoga have often given so much for my nervous system and trauma recovery.
I prefer practising alone, even though I love to teach group classes.
Rest is not something to earn at the end of practice, it is often the practice.
Yoga has been a refuge during some of the hardest days of my life, including mornings of funerals, when the mat was the only place I could land.
Discipline can be gentle, and consistency doesn’t require rigidity.
Yoga has taught me how to be with discomfort without immediately trying to fix it.
The longer I practise, the less impressive it looks from the outside.
There is no virtue in forcing myself into a class or style that doesn’t fit my nervous system.
The practice can be 5 minutes, or a couple of hours.
Showing up matters more than what I do when I get there.
Yoga has taught me to trust sensation over instruction.
Slowing down is often the bravest choice.
A practice that feels nourishing will look different from season to season.
Yoga has helped me feel more resourced.
After thirty years, yoga feels less like a practice and more like a companion, one that meets me exactly where I am, and asks nothing more. One that will gently challenge me when I need it, and offer support and respite.
Stillness can be confronting, and also deeply honest.
Yoga has helped me rebuild trust with my body after it felt unsafe.
Some practices are about building capacity; others are about conserving it.
Yoga remains a lifelong conversation, not a destination.
Reflection Questions
You might like to sit with one or two of these, feel free to share in the comments below.
How has your relationship to yoga (or movement, rest, breath) changed over time?
Where might you be practicing out of habit, comparison, or expectation rather than true need?
What would it mean to let your practice evolve with your current body and season of life?
Where could you allow more gentleness, subtlety, or rest into your practice (or your days)?
In moments of stress or grief, what practices help you feel resourced rather than overwhelmed?
What would it look like to practice not to improve, but to come home?