Yes, parenting is yoga

Though modern perceptions of yoga seem to limit it to physical exercise, the original intention behind the practice was to master the mind in order to discover our true Self. If we can control our mind, we can learn that we are not our thoughts but something so much more magnificent. It is this reason that you’ll often hear spiritual teachers call the practice of yoga “mind control.”

Many are first drawn to yoga for its physical gains, but these are just the tip of the iceberg of its many benefits. In fact, the physical poses originated to keep our bodies healthy enough so we could sit and work on the mind.

Related: Feeling divided between multiple kids? Here’s how yoga helped unite my family

I think it’s really important for us parents to remember that just because we are not doing a two-hour long physical practice does not mean that we are not doing yoga.

Our yoga practice is so much more than the poses. We are practicing yoga every time we remember to take a deep breath during our child’s meltdown. 

We are practicing yoga every time we are able to calm our nervous system after we’ve had a scare at the playground or have had it out with our teenager. We are practicing yoga every time we observe our mind wandering from the reality of the present toward some nonexistent future and are able to re-anchor back into the truth of the now.

In most of my conversations with parents, when I ask them what their practice looks like these days, almost all of them sheepishly admit they haven’t pulled their mats out for a long asana practice in ages. But when we differentiate “yoga asana” from “yoga,” suddenly the answers become much richer. The Colorado-based teacher and parent Mary Beth LaRue’s yoga practices these days involve hiking in the mountains or playing alongside the riverbank with her son. Other parents talk about doing a dedicated sit every day, even if only for fifteen minutes.

Related: Yoga can help reduce anxiety when trying to conceive

Where yoga and parenting intersect

My practice this week has been anchoring in the present moment whenever I’m with each child and trying not to worry about the other (even if they’re crying in the other room—supervised, of course). Most of the parents who still do poses regularly talk about the shift from what their physical practice looked like prior to kids (generally a whole lot stronger and longer) to now, where many are just grateful to be able to lie on a bolster for a few minutes.

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Parenting is yoga

If we can remind ourselves that yoga is not about the poses but how we work with our mind, then perhaps we can be a lot kinder and more realistic about what our practice looks like these days.

Because if this is the case, then parents are practicing yoga every single second of every single day. Parenting is yoga.

I often say in my yoga classes, “It’s not what you are doing but how you are doing it.” You could be totally well-aligned in a posture and your mind is completely elsewhere. Or, conversely, you could be falling all over the place and yet totally immersed in what you are doing. Which do you think is the more advanced practice?

This is not unlike parenting. There are some periods when on the outside, it looks like I’m holding everything together. We are all dressed and the house is clean. I seem to be hitting all my deadlines and my asana practice is strong. But inside, I feel like I’m in a million places other than the present. At other times, things may look pretty messy on the surface, like during postpartum periods or a toddler tornado, but inside I am the most connected to my children and family that I have ever been.

Let’s shift the focus from the outward appearance of things—the poses, the outfits, the clean house, the clean kids—toward the deeper inward connection that is truly yoga.

Adapted from The Yoga of Parenting by Sarah Ezrin © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com