Attend a yoga class (virtual or in-person).

“With my mat under my arm, I rolled into the brew house ready to get my stretch on. [...] Twenty minutes in and my arms, abs and thighs were all sore. But my neck was the sorest of all. I realized as I was laying back in a stretch that the reason my neck was sore was because I was looking around the room to make sure I was doing all the moves right. My neck finally gave out and fell into the position. Suddenly, for the first time in the session, a feeling of relief and calmness washed over me. I decided to lean into that. Move after move, I began putting less focus on doing the move perfectly and more focus on doing the move comfortably. And that’s when things got fun.”

“Showing up for my first class Wednesday at 6:45pm, the teal colored rug welcomed me. Everyone looked like they knew exactly what they were doing and I, not so much. I tumbled over everyone’s shoes (the ones you take off before entering the area), clumsy me, but calmly continued to take mine off and hang up my coat. [...] Frank started with light breathing and soon, I was downward dogging and light planking before I knew it. He watched each “yogi”, e.g. fixing their hips and stabilizing my foot as I warrior-ed through the next two minutes. I was shocked! Me?! The person who couldn’t even do a split, was easily lifting my right and left leg to the ceiling while listening to direction. ME!”

“Once I breathed through my chaturanga-induced collapse at the outdoor yoga class, I did something I’m not sure I would have been able to do three years ago: I gave myself permission to give up. Not to quit and spend the rest of the class in the car on my phone waiting for my companions to finish, as I once might have, but to sit in the lovely outdoor garden, to fold myself into child’s pose when it felt right, and then to recall some of the moves from my Yoga with Adriene video as it felt natural. I daydreamed, I sang as much of Rihanna’s Anti album to myself in my head as I could, I snuck peeks at my partner and our friend as they did their best with what they agreed had been an unusually hard series of poses.”