Musings From the Mat Part 1
by Kyla Dagenais, Co-author of The 90 Day Meditation Challenge
The most meaningful compliment I ever received in class was from a student who looked at me and said, “Your yoga class is full of people who look like they don’t belong at yoga.” This sentiment has stayed with me for years.
The truth is that I have never felt like I ‘belong’ at yoga, and belonging has never been what has brought me to my mat. I don’t know if I have ever felt like I belong anywhere, to be completely honest. It was sadness and despair that brought me to the mat in the first place — feeling like a stranger within myself — the feeling of loneliness and unworthiness that got me to my first yoga class.
I remember the first time I sat on my mat as if it were yesterday. I was 40 pounds (c.18kgs) overweight, at the beginning of a divorce, and in the darkest space. I didn’t attend out of boredom or the want to join a tribe. I joined because I had read the words of the Dalai Lama, and he spoke of the yogi who sought peace within themselves and how the yogi was able to achieve a resilient mind in the suffering of life.
It had absolutely nothing to do with looking good.
