They are not so different, yoga and writing. Though I am a yoga teacher, I consider myself to be a yoga fledgling, relatively speaking. I have been writing poetry and journaling for nearly 30 years now. Writing has been my spiritual practice long before I recognized it as such. Though sometimes I have withdrawn from writing, going months and even years in creative deserts, my creative self has never deserted me. Writing is and has been my retreat, my quiet place, my empty space where I put my thoughts. I love a clean, blank piece of paper — and of course, I hate it as well.

But I consider myself to be a beginner when it comes to yoga, and with a typical beginner's mind, so I relate the things I do when I practice yoga to similar concepts in my writing practice.

Sitting with your writing, trying to form the next sentence or phrase so that it accurately communicates a thought, is for me much like moving into a new unfamiliar posture. Usually at first, I feel tight and not at all able to do "it" in a prescribed manner. I become aware of every muscle and tightness and soreness and inability. Trying new postures helps inform me about my body's boundaries or responses. Practicing yoga teaches me about myself, my body's truths, but is also makes me more aware of my mind's truths and chatterings. If I trust myself and stay in a posture long enough, I find myself opening and relaxing more deeply into myself. The awareness of this process heals and opens on all levels. I find I don't have to perform in any given way or measure up to any other standards other than what my body dictates.

When I sit with my writing, pouring it all out onto page or computer screen, I am at first uncomfortable, especially when writing in an unfamiliar form or about a topic that may be frightening in some way for me. My metaphors are sometimes inflexible and stiff and not strong enough to hold the body of my thoughts or the tensions of emotions I wish to express. But it is through the writing process and staying with that process that I begin to inform myself about my psychic boundaries, my emotional realities, and what I think and believe on a deep level. And if I write long enough, I silence the chatterings of my mind and get to the sound of my own truth.

Almost unaware even in awareness as I explore a yoga posture, somewhere between a deep inhalation and exhalation when my mind has been taken to somewhere else in the body other than pure muscle or grey matter, I am pulled back to the immediacy of the posture and I notice no pain or striving. My body sings, my mind smiles and my spirit whirls. And there is pleasure in knowing that the place of balance has been reached, if not sustained, touched upon like an epiphany.

When I am writing in the flow, letting my authentic nature speak its truth, I reach the same place of joy and peace. Being in a creative flow means moving beyond what the conscious, rational mind is telling us and reaching into the sometimes murky and frightening parts of our unconscious truth. Here is where our real gold lies. Writing mines that gold and brings it into the light of conscious living.

When the body and the mind act as one, not in competition but as a whole being, we open our self to who we are supposed to be. Yoga, as an expression of the body, and writing, as an expression of the mind, are both creative expressions of our deep Self.