Still practicing letting go + five yoga poses to tackle change | Om Yoga Magazine

There was a time in my life when I tried to follow a path that required certainty. I believed, like many of us, that clarity came from choosing one path, one truth, one version of ourselves – and standing behind it without hesitation. Certainty can look like strength. But what stuck with me from that chapter wasn’t the structure or the rules. It was a calmer knowledge: that this life might ask something different of us.

My relationship with yoga, meditation, and Buddhist thought has never been about identity or labels. I’m not practicing to become someone. Well, to be honest, at least not anymore. For many of us, especially in the past, identity and labels can be important; a way to orient ourselves, to belong, to understand who we are not. Over time, practice may change. It can be less about definition and more about how we live. How we interact and receive. How we notice that change is happening. How we feel when something no longer fits, and how we allow ourselves to evolve without having to defend who we used to be. There is a reminder here: that taking care of ourselves, rather than managing how we are perceived, is often a gentler and healthier place to be.

Much of our culture teaches us to cling to opinions, roles, relationships, and even old versions of our healing stories. Holding on can feel like security. There is comfort in the familiar, even if it is cramped or old-fashioned. And yet, with practice, many of us begin to notice something else: that letting go creates space. Space to breathe. Space to soften. Space to encounter life as it really is, instead of how we think it should go.

Yoga is not just about form or technique. It’s not about achieving the perfect form or mastering a pose. In essence, yoga invites flexibility in a deeper sense: flexibility in the body, the mind, and in the way we encounter ourselves over time. Stable without stiffness. Curious without attachment.

Certain attitudes bring us back to this truth again and again.

Balasana (child’s pose) offers a form of surrender. Knees grounded, forehead resting, body folds in and down. There is nothing to achieve here. In this position we can remember that rest is not a failure – it is a form of wisdom.

Uttanasana (standing forward fold) invites liberation through gravity. When the head drops below the heart, the nervous system can soften. We let the spine hang, relax the jaw, relax the effort. There is a quiet humility in bowing to what is.