Yoga is trendy. It is especially trendy in the US where it has been made into a form of mainstream mass-marketed lifestyle exercise that costs just as much, if not more so, than a traditional gym membership. The studios sell yoga clothes made from organic cotton for obscene prices and people feed into it because they want to feel part of something, kind of like how Kabbalah became the it thing 5 minutes with its celebrity followers.

But yoga is empowering and, if done right, can be a cheap form of therapy. For me, my first yoga class was an attempt to find a solution for a persistent problem. With a mind like mine that never stops racing and processing, yoga forces me to establish self discipline, to just focus on the positions and my breathing rather than on the fact that I’m dying to see my family, I want success, happiness, a bright future, to eat mass quantities of key lime pie without gaining weight, to look different, for les français to get a little less irritating….. the list goes on.

I wanted to get “into” yoga in Paris but the studios are quite expensive. I was looking for a place to meet other women and de-stress without going broke. What I found was a sense of community and a way to take control of my mind. It’s not easy, not when there are screaming foreign children just outside the apartment you’re meditating in, but it has given me a little something extra to look forward to each week and introduced me to expats from very different backgrounds. The common denominator is a love for relaxation and in most cases a French significant other. Never before in my life have I managed to reach a state of complete relaxation, where every part of my body tingles as it releases tension and I’m transported to a place outside of myself. If only the feeling wasn’t so fleeting.

Alas, until next week…

Natural Yoga Paris