Yoga and I took a break.

It wasn’t because I was busy getting married, exploring Europe, or moving across the country. I could have made time for my practice like I have a thousand times before.

No.

Yoga was breaking my heart. Or more accurately, “Yoga” the industry.

I was sick of the signed Instagram posts with cliches posted to landscape backgrounds.

I was done with the word-vomit status updates instructing me to breathe, relax, love, live, do yoga, cry, be blessed, eat right, and laugh all in one fragmented sentence covered in rainbows. #blessed

I was tired of daily bikini pictures from yoga teachers, selling their bodies for clients.

I was nauseated by the hypocrisy and horrible business practices of studio owners.

I wanted to leave the room every time a yoga teacher squealed over a student doing an advanced pose. What about the people who were challenged just by making it to their mat today? What about everyone else who is making amazing progress in their own bodies?

I still squeal every time I touch my toes.

As I felt my industry slip into a two-dimensional facade, I started to feel like I didn’t belong. I felt trapped. I felt rejected by such an ‘all-accepting’ and ‘free-loving’ group.

My sour relationship with the yoga industry bled onto my own practice. I felt too much irritation, too much negativity, too many emotions for me to practice without feeling like my skin was too tight and my head was going to explode.

So I called it.

My daily practice was put to an end.

I broke up with yoga. I deleted it from Facebook, I avoided its friends.

When I drank I made my friends take my phone away.

I had no idea when we’d get back together.

It took me a month to cleanse myself of the yoga surrounding me.

It took me another month to let go of the shame and the guilt of quitting my oldest and dearest passion.

And one morning I woke up and a part of me said, “I want to do yoga today.”

So I flirted with my practice. We’re back together and taking things really slow. We’re giving each other space to find our rhythm again. We’re figuring out our new relationship.

I read a few days ago that Stephen Hawking has a new theory that nothing is completely lost in a black hole. I think this news is incredibly inspiring. It means that even the most ruinous thing in the universe cannot destroy anything completely.

How crazy wonderful? 

As I come back to my yoga practice, I’m only picking up the pieces that I like and leaving what doesn’t work for me behind.

And I love it.

I don’t know what this means for my practice or for my future.

But nothing is lost.