Aging and Yoga

In more recent years, people have begun to ask me about practicing yoga and aging. (This is slightly confronting - yes, I too notice my crinkly eye wrinkles and grey hair). I accept body as a changing, temporary home for my aliveness. (That is not to suggest that I am above attachment, vanity, and the array of human things that come with being human in form - of course not!).

I’ve been remembering what it was like to be a teenage girl. Suddenly, no longer appearing a child, I was increasingly confronted with how the world viewed and responded to my physical person. Self-consciousness was born and I began to see and fixate on my physical self in parts - liking this, hating that. When I learned and begun practicing yoga at 19/20 years old, I found a lot of relief. I loved the way it felt to practice yoga. Slowly I become centred and integrated in my being through feeling, though awareness and presence, through breathing and moving every day. I had good teachers, an open-minded education, and enough interest in yogic philosophy to keep me focused on inner work whilst also learning to enjoy my life in physical form.

Where I am now isn’t dissimilar in that I am slowly waking up to being an older person to whom the world responds differently. There are many unsolicited solutions offered to the problem of being older. It can be a bit distracting or even convincing if I’m tired or off-balance. But I am finding that, same as ever, continuing my yoga practice with curiosity (openness and presence) is a balm that centres me around what I value and integrates my experience of being alive in this human form.

I’m curious. Many of you are longtime yoga practitioners too. We are all aging. What is this struggle with yoga and aging? What mindsets position aging as a problem to practicing yoga? How can we overcome them? And, how can we be supportive of one another as we move through life as yoga practitioners who are also just normal humans dealing with normal human things?