Growing Through It

I almost didn’t write this post.

Not because I didn’t have something to say — but because what I have to say is personal. It’s the kind of thing that lives in your chest and doesn’t always want to come out into the light. But the theme of my April yoga classes this month is growing through it, and I think the only honest way I can write about that is to actually do it. To let you in. To tell you that I know what it feels like to be in the middle of something hard and wonder if you’ll come out the other side.

Because I’ve been there. I’m still finding my way through it.

The Last Three Years

I don’t know exactly how to describe what the last three years have been for me, except to say that they broke me open in ways I didn’t choose and couldn’t have predicted. I had reached a point where I was no longer just tired—I was burned all the way through. Burnout had hollowed me out, and somewhere along the way, my grip on reality loosened. Mental illness wasn’t something I was managing anymore; it was something I was drowning in. The fight that had once defined me, the part of me that kept getting back up, quietly slipped away. I didn’t lose it all at once—it eroded, piece by piece—until one day I realized I didn’t have the will to keep battling what felt endless.

There were moments — more than I can count — when it felt unbearable. When I thought, I can’t hold this. This is too much. I’m going to break. And sometimes I did break, a little. I cried in my car. I sat on my mat and couldn’t move. I showed up to teach a class and held it together just long enough, and then fell apart quietly afterward.

I wasn’t graceful. I wasn’t inspiring. I was just a person trying to get through something enormous, one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time.

And here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then: that was growth. All of it. The breaking open, the sitting in the mess, the showing up anyway — that was the work. I just couldn’t see it from inside it.

Growth Doesn’t Look Like a Highlight Reel

Here’s what nobody tells you about growth: it rarely feels like growth when you’re in it. It feels like confusion. Like wobbling. Like being in the middle of something with no clear end in sight. It can feel like you’re failing, or falling behind, or somehow doing it wrong.

But what if you’re not doing it wrong? What if that uncertainty, that unfinished feeling — what if that is growth? What if the discomfort is the whole point?

In yoga, we practice poses that challenge us — that ask us to hold on a little longer than feels comfortable, to breathe through the shake, to stay present when every instinct says just stop. And something interesting happens when you don’t stop: you get stronger. More flexible. More capable than you were before. Not because it was easy. Because it wasn’t.

Life works the same way. I am living proof of that. And if you’re in the middle of something hard right now, so are you — even if you can’t feel it yet.

The Urge to Stay Safe

There’s a pull in all of us toward what’s familiar. Toward the safe spot. The known path. The pose we’ve done a hundred times because we know we can do it.

I felt that pull so strongly over the last few years. The temptation to shut down. To stop feeling. To find the fastest way back to something stable and certain and comfortable, even if that something wasn’t right for me anymore. Safety is seductive, especially when you’re exhausted and hurting.

But staying only where it’s safe? That’s where growth stops.

Real growth almost always requires stepping into something that feels uncertain. A new relationship. A career change. A hard conversation. A version of yourself you haven’t fully met yet. These things are uncomfortable, not because something is wrong — but because something is happening. You are changing. You are expanding. You are becoming.

The trick is not to fight it. I spent so much energy fighting it — wishing things were different, wishing I could go back, wishing I could skip to the part where it didn’t hurt anymore. And the growth came not when I fought, but when I finally — exhaustedly, reluctantly — let it move through me.

Vulnerability Is Not Weakness

I used to think that falling apart was a sign I wasn’t strong enough. That needing help, or admitting I was struggling, or letting people see me unpolished and uncertain — that those things made me less capable. Less credible. Less of a person and maybe less of a teacher.

I was wrong.

The vulnerability I was forced into over these past three years — the willingness to endure what I couldn’t change, to sit with discomfort instead of running from it, to ask for help when I had nothing left — that became the source of my strength, not evidence of its absence. It made me more empathetic. More honest. More in tune with who I actually am, rather than who I thought I was supposed to be.

I am not the same person I was three years ago. And I am so grateful for that. Even for the hard parts. Especially for the hard parts.

Stay In It — Even When It’s Messy

Growth is slow. It’s nonlinear. It backtracks sometimes. It’s rarely graceful, and it almost never looks finished.

And that’s okay.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be polished or perfectly put together or certain about where this is all going. You just have to stay in it. Keep showing up — to your practice, to your relationships, to yourself — even when it doesn’t feel pretty. Especially then.

I kept showing up to my mat on the days I didn’t want to. I kept teaching even when I felt hollow. I kept reaching toward connection even when I wanted to disappear. Not because I had it together — but because I knew, somewhere underneath all the hurt, that showing up mattered. That I mattered. That what was happening to me wasn’t the end of my story.

It wasn’t. It’s not yours either.

April Is a Good Month for This

There’s something about April that feels exactly right for this conversation. The world is literally in the middle of becoming something — buds pushing through branches, things waking up that have been quiet and still all winter. Growth happening slowly, imperfectly, stubbornly. Right on time.

That’s us, too. All of us — on the mat, off the mat, in the middle of something we didn’t ask for or something we bravely chose. Growing slowly. Imperfectly. Right on time.

Whatever you’re growing through right now — a transition, a loss, a becoming, a quiet unraveling you haven’t told anyone about yet — I hope you’ll let yourself be in it. Not rush past it. Not numb it out. Not trade it for the comfort of staying exactly where you are.

Stay in the stretch. Breathe through the shake.

You are not broken. You are not behind. You are not doing it wrong.

You’re growing. And so am I.

And that makes all the difference.

I’d love to know what you’re growing through this season — on the mat or off it. Share in the comments, send me a message, or just bring it with you next time you practice. There’s space here for all of it.