The Thinking Yogi
by Kerry Maiorca

March 06: Yoga – the ‘good’ addiction?

Do you feel like your yoga practice simply isn’t complete without a set number of sun salutations? Have you ever felt like you can’t finish your practice without first doing chaturanga or a deep backbend? If so, you may be a yoga addict. But don’t worry – the cure for yoga addiction doesn’t require any expensive treatments, but rather a change in perspective.

Yoga practice can help you find a state of health and well-being in body and mind and is a wonderful thing to be drawn to. But if you ‘need’ the routine of sun salutations in order to consider it a worthwhile session, you may discover that the big picture of why you’re practicing has become a little fuzzy.

What will happen if you don’t practice sun salutations for one day? What if you miss an inversion just this one time? Dependency on the intensity and physicality of yoga can become simply another addiction, causing you to feel tethered by your practice rather than experiencing it as pure enjoyment.

Perhaps you used to find yourself addicted to something less desirable, so this seems like a step in the right direction. And yes, being addicted to yoga practice is preferable to smoking cigarettes or compulsively overeating. However, it is still an addiction.

When you depend upon something (whether that’s yoga or cigarettes) to produce a certain feeling or sense of security, you’re at risk of losing that feeling of security if the thing that produced it is taken away from you. What happens when there’s a week where you absolutely can’t make time for yoga practice? What if you’re ill or injured and are unable to stick to your normal, vigorous practice routine? What bad habits will resurface to replace the feeling of security that your practice was providing?

When yoga practice is a tool to free you from dependency, it teaches you to sustain that sense of security no matter where you go or what is going on around you.

I’m certainly not implying that the act of practicing yoga on a daily basis makes you a yoga addict. I’m a huge proponent of consistent yoga practice, as it has helped me personally to find a state of balance both in body and mind. It’s all in the way you approach it. Most of us brush our teeth on a daily basis (and hopefully more than once a day!), but wouldn’t consider ourselves to be addicted to tooth brushing. Your approach to your practice will determine whether it becomes a healthy part of your daily life or something that begins to take over.

The physical practice is a foundation of yoga. I simply invite you to consider whether it has become a crutch for you. If so, try to introduce some new aspects into your sessions. Perhaps practice once a week not doing any sun salutations, but instead spend a longer time quietly observing your breath in a seated posture, or try holding the poses for a longer period of time and notice how that makes you feel. Observe whether you feel anxious that you’re not getting your normal ‘yoga workout’ and notice any feelings of judgment that arise.

The practice of yoga, of being present in the moment, can bring richness to your daily life that goes beyond a sense of physical well-being, beyond the benefits of strength and flexibility and into something less concrete but profoundly valuable. Freeing yourself from dependency in all its forms will enable you to take another step forward on the path to truly living from moment to moment.