The Reinvention Tour - I went back to Yoga and cried.

Yesterday morning, I went to my first yoga class in over eight years.

I almost did not go. My sensitivity had a list of reasons ready before my alarm had even finished. You’re tired. You do not know anyone there. It is a new place. You do not know what to expect. Just stay in bed. You can go next week. My nervous system was already bracing before I had even sat up.

Here is something I hardly ever admit— I struggle with new situations. New places, new people, new social environments. What might look like laziness or nerves from the outside is something that runs deeper than that for me. I feel the world intensely. Loud noise, unfamiliar environments, social situations — these things affect me in ways that are physical, not just emotional. Pushing through them requires a particular kind of courage that most people do not realise I am summoning. It’s been with me my entire life, and I’m quite sure that it has held me back from greatness in a lot of areas of my life.

This morning I summoned it. I got up, got dressed and went.

How I Found the Right Studio

I didn’t go anywhere random. I was strategic because I knew that if I walked into the wrong studio, I would have no reason to ever go back. I needed a real place. Not pretentious. Not performative. A place with real people.

I reached out to my friend Linda Wolff, a yogi , and creator of @botoxparaelalma whose instincts I trust completely. Linda lives in Shanghai now, but she knew exactly where to send me. Yoga Lyfe in Middle Park. A real studio with real teachers and real humans showing up to do the work.

She was right. From the moment I walked in, I knew.

Yin Yoga — Going Within

I practised Iyengar yoga for over 15 years. Then Bikram for a while. I stopped not because I wanted to, but because I could not find a studio I loved. And because I feel situations so intensely, walking into the wrong environment becomes overwhelming. My body responds with genuine fear. It is easier to stay home than to risk that feeling. And without a studio I loved and trusted, I could not sustain the practice. That is how it goes sometimes. One small thing collapses, and the whole structure falls with it.

Yin yoga is different to both. It is slow, deliberate, deeply internal. You hold each pose for three to five minutes. You close your eyes. You go within, and open up.

A lot came up this morning.

The Tears

We were lying on our backs doing breathwork. Eyes closed. Quiet room. My body is finally still after what feels like years of bracing against everything.

And then something opened.

The joy of being back on the mat. The meditative state. The calming of my nervous system after a lifetime of feeling everything so intensely. It was all of it at once, and the tears came quietly, eyes still closed, in the way you cry when something returns to you that you had stopped hoping would come back.

Not sadness. Not grief. Just the particular relief of coming home.

Yoga opens your soul. I had forgotten that. Or perhaps I had not forgotten, perhaps I had just not been ready to let it open until now.

I Have Booked Two More Classes This Week

Because that is what the Reinvention Tour actually looks like in practice. Not grand gestures. Not dramatic transformations. Just a woman lying on a mat in Middle Park with tears in her eyes, thinking — yes. This. Finally.

I have booked two more classes this week. My nervous system has already noted this in her diary and is preparing her objections. I am not listening to her.

My body and my soul need yoga. They have always needed yoga. The Reinvention Tour is simply the process of giving them what they need, one decision, one morning, one mat at a time.

Have you ever gone back to something after years away and felt your whole body say yes? Tell me in the comments. I would love to hear it. 💛