The Yoga of Parenting

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For the last several years, yoga teacher and writer Sarah Ezrin has generously shared her experiences, insights, challenges, and courage with all of us in her regular articles for Yoga Journal. You can continue to learn from her here, although her sharing of life wisdom continues with the publication of her first book, The Yoga of Parenting: Ten Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect With Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself, from which the below is excerpted.

I have been meditating for nearly thirty years and practicing asana, the physical practice, for over twenty and I can say without a doubt that the most advanced yoga I have ever done is raising children.

I have never been more stretched, more challenged, or more strengthened nor have I felt more ecstasy or been more connected than I have raising my two sons. And I used to wrap my legs behind my head every morning before coffee!

When we think of yoga, we often picture someone doing a fancy pose on a beach, but the physical practice is just a tiny piece of this incredible tradition. Yoga is much more about how we live our lives than what shapes we make with our body. It is about unity and connection—and who do we want to be more connected to than our children? (Well, most days anyway).

I have witnessed firsthand how this ancient practice changes how people interact with and behave in the world. I have seen how much kinder, more compassionate, calm, and balanced parents who practice yoga can be.

And I have also seen how incredibly human yoga practitioner parents still are too; no matter how many spiritual texts we read or hours we sit for meditation, or how many silent retreats we go on, we still yell at our kids. We still cry when we are overwhelmed, and we still need help sometimes (okay, a lot of the time). I mean, even the Dalai Lama admits to getting angry, and he doesn't have children.

The truth is we are all works in progress: "Perfectly imperfect," as the saying goes. And parenting has been and always will be the most challenging personal work some of us will ever do.

Maybe that is why so many spiritual paths encourage renunciation. It is much harder to reach a realized state when your three-year-old is destroying your house and your newborn is scream-crying in the other room.

But this is also why parenthood can be the ultimate spiritual experience. It is no coincidence that I wrote this book while learning to navigate the dynamic of raising both a toddler and a baby. We have an opportunity to learn way more about ourselves when we interact with the world than sitting quietly in a meditative state. As Hunter Clarke-Fields, the author of Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Reactive Cycle of Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids, says, "Six months with a preschooler can be more effective than years alone on a mountain top." Adding, "It might just be the fast track to enlightenment."

If we are willing to slow down and look at our stuff, parenthood can provide a powerful lens for us to get to know ourselves more deeply. Much like when we are on our yoga mats, it is a place in our lives where we can observe our tendencies and learn how to shift our behaviors.

Everything you need to know is inside of you. Yoga will not transform you into a great parent because spoiler alert: you already are. Instead, yoga will help you rediscover that same unconditional love you feel toward your children for yourself.

And when you come back to yourself, when you feel connected and whole, you will be able to approach your family with a focused mind and a whole heart.

This is yoga.

This is parenthood.

We learn about ourselves intimately on the yoga mat. It is like a laboratory where we can observe our tendencies and experiment with our responses in a safe setting. One of the things we get to look at is how we respond in a heightened state. This seems to especially arise in balance poses or fast-moving flows.

That feeling of falling out of Vrksasana (Tree Pose) is the exact same feeling we get when our kid gives us an attitude, or we lose our patience with them. Learning what our body does and what it feels like in a heightened state can help us learn how to calm it down more quickly.

Stand at the top of your mat in Tadasana. Take a moment to get grounded and present. Remember that this is the blueprint for all other postures.

Pick up your right knee and place your right foot on your inner left thigh above your knee or down by your ankle and calf.

You may need a wall for balance. If not, have both arms slightly away from your torso, with your fingertips pointing down. Reach down through your arms to release any tension in your upper back or neck.

Once you feel steady, begin to play with your balance. If you are looking down, look forward or up. You may even try closing your eyes. You can also play with lifting your arms overhead. Allow the rush of sensation to ride through you when you teeter. See if you can stay with it, even if it means allowing yourself to fall.

Before repeating on your second side, take a moment in Tadasana to ground and come back to center. Observe how long it takes for your heart rate to settle and for you to feel grounded once again.

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

About Our Contributor

Sarah Ezrin is an author, world-renowned yoga educator, popular Instagram influencer, and mama based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her willingness to be unabashedly honest and vulnerable along with her innate wisdom make her writing, yoga classes, and social media great sources of healing and inner peace for many people. Sarah is changing the world, teaching self-love one person at a time. She is also the author of The Yoga of Parenting. You can follow her on Instagram at @sarahezrinyoga and TikTok at @sarahezrin.