When I first started practicing yoga, I didn't want anybody to see me. I didn't feel good enough, strong enough, skinny enough. I would head straight to the far back corner of the yoga studio and would never think of bringing friends to practice with me. It felt like my most vulnerable self was on display. So I definitely never posted my practice anywhere online.
Even when I started to feel more confident and learned some Sanskrit names and finally understood how to do a chatturunga, I still hid. I developed this idea that my yoga practice was too deeply personal to allow others to see it or hear about it. It was mine and I was adamantly safeguarding it. I decided that posting my yoga on social media would completely corrupt it and turn it into an attempt to validate myself through aesthetics. This was the mindset I operated under for the past three years.
Until I realized that this 'holier than thou' complex was really just a coverup for still not feeling good enough. I was still hiding, thinking that I needed to be perfect and attain certain destinations before I could truly open up.
Social media has always been super weird for me, as I'm sure it is with a lot of other people. We see our friends and friends of friends gallivanting around the world or partying around the city while we sit at home on our coach scrolling with some Ben and Jerrys. We get to show those we're closest to and those we're not so close to the very best side of ourselves- the side that is airbrushed, posed, and orchestrated. We can literally curate who we are to the world.
Humans are supposed to be messy sometimes and upset sometimes and all over the place sometimes, but we usually don't strive to show this side of ourselves to others. We hide, and with social media, we can hide a little bit easier.
But I believe that we can actually use social media as a part of our yoga rather than as a threat against it. While the false mirrors and people pleasing of social media can definitely be dangerous, it has so much more potential to spread love and open networks of conscious communication. It's simply a choice to use it in this mindful way.
And that's what I'm striving to do now by sharing my yoga practice and my yoga process with my community. Yoga has been the most influential and positive force on my life and it only seems honest to have my social media reflect this truth. If we get to curate who we are, that also means that we can choose to show up honestly and without any limitations on our humanness.
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