Warning: Yoga is the New Gateway Drug

It’s true. Your intent might be totally innocent. You’re just curious as to what all this hubbub is about something called yoga. Everyone seems to be doing it these days. You just want to be like the cool kids. You’re curious. You just can’t help it.

It’s okay to be curious, just know that yoga is addictive. It’s probably the most healthy addiction one could ever have. Here’s what’s probably going to happen if you become addicted to yoga. The signs are easy to spot. The path is similar for every addict:

First, you show up to a yoga class. You love it and wonder why you’ve never done this before. You laugh at yourself and think how silly it was for you to assume for all these years that yoga was just for hippies. Those hippies were really on to something. Or on something. But actually, maybe it was just all the yoga. Okay, and the weed.

You start coming to more yoga classes. Whenever it’s convenient. Whenever it works in your schedule. But it just feels so good, you really feel like you should do it more often. So you reschedule some things around in your head, make some excuses to yourself and others about why yoga has suddenly become more important than say, cooking dinner or watching your favorite TV show.

Before you know it, you’re showing up at the studio every day. You’ve made new friends. You’re friendly with the instructor. More and more you start listening to the things the instructor is actually saying – you know, the words that come out of her mouth after all the physical cues and posture names. The philosophy and stuff. It’s kind of interesting.

One day, you’re at the grocery store and you find a sudden urge to buy some kale. You’ve never had it before, but the yoga instructor was raving about it. Steamed with a little lemon juice sprinkled on top. Why does that sound so good? You put your frozen French fries back in the freezer case and head over to the little visited produce section. It’s like you’ve entered a whole new world.

Watch out, you’ve just ingested the highly addictive healthy eating bug. Your significant other suggests you grab McDonald’s for lunch on the way home from church but all the sudden fast food sounds disgusting. What is happening to you!?

You suddenly feel compelled to browse the aisles of Whole Foods – just because. You might not be able to afford anything, but you feel like you belong there for some reason. You see the case with refrigerated drinks and notice the lines and lines of Kombucha. Fermented mushrooms? Why not! You fall in love.

You’re watching as your life unfolds in front of you. You don’t feel like your self anymore, except that you feel more like your Self than ever before.

Your relationships are better, truer and more rich. Except that you had to ditch a few because you realized they just weren’t serving you. The phrase “let go of what doesn’t serve you” actually makes sense now.You feel better than ever before because you’re stretching your body and your mind every day in class and feeding it healthy stuff like whole grains and vegetables and positivity. Who knew that stuff was actually good for you?

And you now wake up and sit on a cushion every morning with your eyes closed, breathing, your palms gently resting on your thighs, face up.

How did you get here? You’re addicted and you just can’t stop! Your life is back in your control and you’ve finally identified all your hopes and dreams and understand how to get what you want.

How did it get to be like this? You cry more, you’re in touch with your emotions. And you know what, it’s the scariest, most exhilarating thing in life, to actually feel again as opposed to numbing yourself with the other chemicals that used to course through your veins. The nicotine and the alcohol. The saturated fats and other synthetic rocks, crystals and herbs that were a part of your casual foray into “spirituality.” And all the sudden you think to yourself, who was I to call those yogis hippies when I was the one playing with all the crystals, rocks and herbs?

Here you are. Your life changed forever. You’re still playing with chemicals, except now they’re all internal. You’ve become a professional hacker, trying to tune into your body, mind and spirit with your body, mind and spirit. You wish someone would have taught you years ago to save your money because the answers you’ve been looking for are not contained in external sources. It’s all inside. And it’s free!

And it all started because of that one “stupid” yoga class you went to years ago.

Except this time, you think you should probably tell your friends about it. Get them hooked. There’s no turning back. This is the real deal. The hard shit.