Yoga as the Work of Living in Line With Your Values

One thing I’ve learned again and again—both in my own practice and in the work I do with students—is that living and working in line with your values isn’t something that just happens. It’s not a mindset you switch on or a single decision you make and never revisit. It’s work. Quiet, ongoing, sometimes uncomfortable work. And yoga gives us a place to practice it with honesty.

Before we can even begin living our values, many of us first have to figure out what those values actually are. Not the ones we inherited, were praised for, or learned to perform—but the ones that genuinely belong to us. That sorting process can be tender. I’ve had to sit with my own assumptions about what I “should” care about and ask myself whether those beliefs truly reflect who I am now. Yoga supports that kind of clarity—not by providing answers, but by teaching us how to listen.

When I come to the mat, I learn to notice things I’d usually rush past: Where am I pushing? Where am I avoiding? Where am I bracing? These patterns show up physically long before they show up in big life decisions, which means I can meet them with curiosity instead of judgment. The mat becomes a kind of laboratory where I can study myself gently, without the pressure of “getting it right.”

In slow practices especially, like Yin, I’m reminded that living in alignment with my values often feels like holding a sensation that’s not entirely comfortable. Staying with myself—breathing, softening what can soften, witnessing what feels tight—mirrors the emotional work of choosing what’s true for me rather than what’s expected of me. I practice this in long-held shapes, and then I find myself able to practice it in conversations, boundaries, and decisions outside the studio.

Breathwork teaches me how to pause before reacting. Meditation teaches me how to hear the quieter truths underneath the noise. Together, they help me act from steadiness instead of urgency. And when I drift away from my values—as we all do—they give me a pathway back.

Over time, yoga becomes a mirror. It shows me the habits that pull me away from myself, and the capacities that help me return: patience, compassion, discernment, trust. It reminds me that alignment isn’t a destination we reach; it’s a practice we return to again and again.

For me, the mat is simply a place where I get to notice things more clearly. The way I breathe through challenge, the way I soften around resistance, the way I choose presence over autopilot—these patterns don’t stay on the mat. They follow me into conversations, decisions, and the way I show up in my work and relationships.

And in that way, yoga becomes not just something we do, but something that steadily shapes who we are becoming.