I Never Understood How to Be More Present. Until This Happened.

When I first started yoga, I didn’t pay attention to the teachers’ “Welcome, yogis, blah, blah, blah.” These three minutes of inspiration, philosophies, and bits of wisdom always played like a cliché scene in a bad episode of Seinfeld. Yes, there are bad episodes of Seinfeld—season one was not good. Since I was using yoga to replace running, I impatiently indulged the spiritual musings, anxious to get to the exercise portion of the practice. I kept thinking, What is this shit?

I tried different teachers. They all had an opening monologue.

When are they going to stop talking!? I wondered.

After about ten classes, I accepted that I was “in the room” and that the class wasn’t going to change simply because my inside voice was chanting, “Let’s go let’s go let’s go.” One day, while sitting in a facsimile of a relaxed pose, I was busy cataloguing the active grievances in my life. A breeze lifted the almost-weightless, gauze-like purple curtain, providing a glimpse into the leafy tranquility of Amagansett Square. A little girl, so small she still wobbled as she ran, chased after a puppy. Yes, a puppy! Was I living inside a Hallmark card designed for a grandma? I punched back at the cynicism: Why couldn’t something that cute, that simple, that playful, happen in real life?

I began to search my memory bank: Was there ever a moment like that in my childhood? Did the wobbly little me ever chase a puppy through the vibrant greens of a late spring day? Probably not. My father never trusted dogs. He was afraid of them. He could yell at his children and know for certain they would cower; he was always afraid a dog might bite back.

I learned early on to take my joy where I could find it—in my case, cuddly sweaters. Transfixed by that little girl in gigglish pursuit of her baby lab, my mind slowed, as if someone eased their foot onto the brakes of my thought processor. Accidentally, I heard softly spoken guidance floating through the room.

ME (silently, to myself): Shut up and listen.

Something about squirrels in my head? Wait—was that an unexpected whiff of relevance? My mind downshifted. A prick of curiosity. I was finally “in the room.” I was “present.” Settled. Was I on my way to some sort of om-infused enlightenment?

A soft wave of laughter moved through the room—a nod to the collective recognition of a truth? My curiosity was piqued. Everyone seemed to be glowing just a bit. What did I miss?

The next class, I showed up with my ears on. I embraced active listening. I came with the expectation of being lifted by the power of magical, mystical insights. If there was gold to mine in the opening monologue, that gold was going to be mine. I had my hands in prayer position and I was all set to get rich quick.

Some of what I heard began to resonate. It was shit I needed to hear. I was learning a new language, not for communicating with others, but as a way of connecting with myself. A way of being in the world. My world.

The physical benefits of yoga are different than the benefits of a six-mile run. Yoga stretched my body; changed my posture; and built strength, stamina, and balance. However, it’s the little “spiritual bits” that helped shape who I’ve become. They’ve strengthened the equally important emotional muscles: patience, calm, acceptance, and confidence. There is less noise in my head, so I’m more present in my life. I’m more at ease with uncertainty.

Hey, reader, did you just roll your eyes? That’s okay.

Just a few years ago, if you told me you were “more present in your life,” you would have heard my eyeballs hit the back of my head. I don’t roll my eyes anymore. That doesn’t make me a better person, but it makes me a happier person. I’m much calmer than my pre-yoga days. We’ve all heard the saying, “If I knew then what I know now….” Well, this “shit” I picked up at yoga is exactly the shit I wish I knew then.

So stay with me. Shut up and listen. Not to me, but to what I heard and learned along the way.

This article is excerpted from The S@#t I’ve Heard at Yoga: What I Learned in Downward Dog by Michael J. Norton. Copyright 2026. Used with permission by Post Hill Press.