I often get asked “how do I start doing yoga?” It’s big wide yoga-world out there, with a thousand different ways to practice yoga and plenty of recourses to turn to. It can be confusing.

I’m here to help you know where to begin. My philosophy: We always begin by noticing. We notice how our breathe is moving, shallow or deep and we don’t try to change it, we just notice it. Then as we deepen into our own breath we can see more clearly if we are spending our time looking backwards or forwards, we notice if our chest feels tight or open, we notice what harmful patterns we are ready to get rid of, but maybe aren’t sure how to yet. If you’ve noticed it, you’ve already started.

As far as the physical practice of yoga, I use the poses, the asanas, to get into the body, not the body to get into the poses. Again, we bring attention to where we need to become stronger and where we need to let go, where we need to twist from, what we need to engage, what we need to elongate, where we want our gaze, and what needs to be an absolute mess before it makes any sense. By going in, we get out.

And breath by breath, our mind becomes calmer as we practice finding magic in the mess. When that one difficult pose you’ve always wanted to do, comes together and it doesn’t feel chaotic. Instead, it feels like you’ve found that thing inside of you that was always there: strength, focus, determination, resilience and self-love. It was just hiding beneath all the noise.