Moving Into the Practice
What Stepping Away from Teaching Taught Me About Yoga.
There was a time when I often said, “Yoga isn’t just what happens on the mat, it’s what happens after you roll it up.”
I believed it, I taught it, and I wove it into my dharma talks. But if I am honest, I had not fully lived it.
When I stepped away from teaching regularly, I told myself it was to focus on my own practice. That was the clean, simple answer, and it was true.
What I did not realize was how deep that focus would take me. I thought I was creating space to refine postures, strengthen my handstand, and return to the quiet discipline of showing up for myself without guiding a class. Instead, the space forced me to look at how I was living. Where my energy was going. What was aligned, and what wasn’t.
In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, yoga is defined as “the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.” So I practiced asana with devotion. I studied the philosophy. I learned to speak about the eight limbs. But knowing the map is not the same as walking barefoot through the terrain.
Without the responsibility of teaching, I could finally practice the Eight Limbs of Yoga for myself, not as philosophy, but as structure.
Yama (ethical restraints)
Niyama (personal observances)
Asana (posture)
Pranayama (breath control)
Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses)
Dharana (concentration)
Dhyana (meditation)
Samadhi (integration/absorption)
Last year, the eight limbs stopped being philosophy and became part of my daily practice, starting with the Yamas.
Ahimsa (non-violence): stopped being about how I moved through a room and became about how I moved through my own mind.
Satya (truthfulness): required quiet integrity, not dramatic honesty, just truth.
Asteya (non-stealing): showed me where I was stealing from myself-my time, my rest, my creativity, my energy.
Brahmacharya (wise use of energy): revealed how scattered I had become, and how often my depletion was self-created.
Aparigraha (non-attachment) asked me to release expectation, identity, and the need to be understood.
Living the Yamas showed me where I overextend, cling, perform, and stay too long.
When I stepped back from teaching, I thought I was simply redirecting my energy inward, but it was more than that, it was a withdrawal from all the external noise. Less input. More awareness.
Without the rhythm of leading classes, I met silence differently. I noticed my patterns more clearly. My nervous system recalibrated, my sleep deepened, my reactions softened, and I finally started to notice the infamous pause. My practice became more about presence.
Structure. Discipline. Devotion.
Yoga teaches that we are not just a body, that we are layered with experiences.
The Koshas describe five “sheaths” or layers of human experience, moving from the gross (physical) to the subtle (spiritual). They are not separate parts, they are layered and connected; like layers of an onion.
The Koshas describe five sheaths of being:
Annamaya Kosha: physical body.
Pranamaya Kosha: energetic body, carried by breath.
Manomaya Kosha: mental and emotional body.
Vijnanamaya Kosha: discernment, my inner wisdom.
Anandamaya Kosha: quiet sense of integration and contentment.
For a long time, my practice lived primarily in Annamaya Kosha. Rocket Yoga became part of my structure, not because I needed something harder, but because I needed consistency. Rocket is physical, demanding, and structured. It met me first in Annamaya Kosha, but over time, it took me deeper. Rocket does not allow me to drift. It demands presence, and presence begins with breath. Somewhere in those early mornings, I realized Rocket was shaping my Pranamaya Kosha. My breath had become my anchor.
I began waking earlier, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. The physical challenge sharpened me. My breath steadied me, my boundaries sharpened, and my reactivity softened, thus bringing me to the doorstep of, Manomaya Kosha. You see, I spiraled less, I reacted less, I was rooted, and confident. What started as structure in my physical body began reorganizing my entire system, and I found alignment-not just in my hips, but in my life.
My physical practice started to change too. Strength I had chased for years quietly arrived. Definition sharpened. My focus became steady instead of scattered. But the most profound shift has been my ability to practice Pratyahara; even in a full room.
On Soulful Sundays, I can withdraw inward in a way I never could before. The music fades. The room dissolves. The practice becomes all mine; no matter how many people surround me. That did not come from pushing harder, it came from quiet discipline, and being alone.
Less external stimulation, and more internal steadiness.
Alignment Is Not a Pose
Alignment used to mean stacking joints, now it means integrity.
It means my actions match my values, my schedule reflects my priorities, my relationships honor reciprocity, and my work is rooted in purpose.
When I say I am more aligned now, I do not mean more flexible, I mean more balanced.
For me, Yoga off the mat is daily discipline, radical honesty, a softened nervous system, and living the Yamas-even when no one is watching.
It means choosing vulnerability over control and trusting the practice enough to let it change me.
I didn’t move away from yoga, I moved further into it.
Still learning,
Lisa Ostler
RN, BSN | 500 E-RYT | YACEP
Ayurvedic Wellness Advisor
Sacred Juniper Ayurvedic Clinic
