The Five-Year Pose

Once upon a time, I ventured out into a journey of ever-expanding seas.

It began in the summer of 2019, when an Instagram story caught my eye. A coworker I barely knew posted about Capitol Yoga - free community yoga on the lawn of Utah's state capitol. "Who will I see tonight?

Something pulled me to respond. She said yes. I showed up.

I hadn't done yoga in years. I barely stretched. And there I was, attempting a power yoga flow with hundreds of people on the grass, discovering just how disconnected I'd become from my own body. Even though I was lifting weights regularly, moving through those poses humbled me in ways the gym never had. Every tight muscle, every weak link, every place I'd lost mobility - it all revealed itself on that mat.

But something else happened, too. Something I struggle to put into words.

Moving with only my own strength, supporting my own weight, guided by nothing but my breath - I felt ecstatic. Fully alive. Fully present. Through yoga, I finally began to hear my body and connect with her in a way I had never before.

I was hooked.

Every Wednesday that summer, hundreds of us gathered as different studios came to teach different styles - power, restorative, and vinyasa. It was incredible. As the weeks passed, connections sparked, and friendships blossomed. Two of my dearest friendships began on those evenings, relationships that continue to nourish my life today.

When the season ended, I joined the studio that had created this magic and discovered restorative yoga- the slow, deep practice where you hold poses long enough to sink past muscle into fascia, breathing into spaces you didn't know existed. Props were encouraged: bolsters, blocks, straps, blankets. This became my medicine, the practice that would eventually lead me to teacher training.

But not every pose welcomed me.

The Pose I Loathed

I found it difficult to believe how challenging some poses were for me. Especially camel pose.

I... loathed it. That feels like a harsh word, but I'm not sure what a softer version would be. I really, truly disliked camel pose. It felt impossible.

Camel pose (Ustrasana) is an expansive, heart-opening backbend. You're on your knees, leaning backward, heart expanding toward the sky. Easy enough, right? Except most of us don't spend enough - or any - time intentionally expanding open through our heart space and bending backward. More often, we're seated with our shoulders rounded and caving in, literally closing ourselves off.

As my practice deepened, I learned that the heart space, Anahata, the fourth chakra, is our center of connection, love, and empathy. Practicing heart-opening poses like camel helps expand this center. Beautiful teachings, and I appreciated understanding the medicine this pose was offering.

And that didn't change the fact that it was so. damn. challenging.

The Teacher's Wisdom

Two years in, my journey with camel pose led me to yoga teacher training. One afternoon in class, my teacher said something that stopped me: "If you find yourself avoiding or resisting a pose - one that isn't causing you harm - lean into it. That's usually one of the poses you really need."

Alright. Perhaps there is some wisdom there.

So, I kept showing up. Week after week, month after month, year after year. I showed up to camel pose with my limited range, my catching breath, and my frustration. Eventually, I made peace with it. Not every pose is for everybody... this one just isn't mine.

I loved yoga anyway. So I kept showing up.

I define consistency as showing up at least once a week, though I aim for daily. Through that consistency, something was happening beneath the surface that I couldn't see. Invisible progress was accumulating in my fascia, my nervous system, my cells.

Five Years

Five years into my yoga journey, during a regular class, the teacher cued camel pose.

I moved into my usual starting position, breathing into that familiar edge. But this time, something was different. My body simply... opened. I leaned back further. My hands found my heels. The full expression of the pose came online.

Steady breath. Calm mind. Expansive heart.

I was in full expression, holding the pose, and calm.

Five years of showing up, even when progress felt invisible. And in one moment, everything clicked into place.

What I learned

Backbends aren't just physical milestones. They're emotional and spiritual ones too. They unlock when stored grief softens - and I've carried a lot of grief. They open when old protections loosen, when our sense of self evolves, when our nervous system finally feels safe enough, when self-trust matures.

Camel exposes everything: heart, throat, gut, ribs, pelvis. Front body and back body. It requires vulnerability and courage.

The heart expands. And expansion cannot be rushed.

When the chest opens physically, the heart opens energetically, and the psyche opens emotionally. It's a full system release.

On the Mat, Off the Mat

There's a saying in yoga: on the mat, off the mat. What we practice on our mats prepares us for life beyond them.

Those challenging poses - when you're holding an edge, breathing through discomfort, learning to find steadiness in intensity - they're rehearsals. When you're in an argument with your partner, when you're receiving harsh feedback at work, when you're dealing with your child's meltdown, you've already been here. You've already practiced finding your breath as an anchor.

And when you find your breath, the storm begins to calm. Clarity settles. Receptivity awakens. You can hear what's actually happening - both the spoken and the unspoken.

This is the power of the pause. The conscious breath before the reactive word. The space between stimulus and response.

As my spinal mobility has increased, as my heart has learned to expand rather than protect, I've watched every relationship in my life shift. There's been a softening. As I've opened space in my body, I've softened my view of the world. The rigid either/or thinking has become less absolute. I am learning to hold both sides. The extremes don't call to me. There is profound wisdom in the middle ground.

For Anyone Who Feels Too Stiff

People often tell me they're too inflexible for yoga, that they need to look a certain way or have a certain body to practice.

And sure, there's some truth there - poses need to look a certain way to ensure safety, and some full expressions require flexibility. But these qualities come through showing up to practice. Over weeks and years. They're not prerequisites; they're results.

When I began this journey six years ago, my body was stiff and greatly lacked flexibility. But the connection to my breath, the heightened awareness of my body through yoga, I could finally begin to hear her and connect with her.

It took five years for the full expression of camel pose to bloom. And while five years may seem like a long time, the wisdom of showing up to each practice - dropping in, learning, listening, feeling, shedding, embodying - is worth every moment.

The Paradox

Here's what I learned through five years of showing up:

Transformation isn't always linear. Sometimes we grow in ways we can't see or measure. Sometimes it takes years for the body to feel safe enough to open.

Backbends teach us softening with strength. Expansion without force. Vulnerability as courage. The past and future held together in the present moment.

And sometimes, it takes five years on the mat - five years of invisible progress, of patience, of surrender, to finally break open into what was waiting for us all along.

Not because I stopped trying.

But because I kept showing up. And in doing that, I found being. In that being, I found aparigraha - non-attachment to the depth of the pose. I found Santosha - contentment with where I was each day.

The opening came not from forcing or from quitting, but from continuing to show up without grasping for the outcome.

The wisdom of showing up to each practice, dropping in, learning, listening, feeling, shedding, embodying - I hope I have a hundred more years of experiencing this practice.

If you're in your own five-year pose - whatever that looks like for you - keep showing up. Your body remembers every effort, even when progress feels absent. Trust the process. Trust your body. Trust the timeline.

The opening will come.

Heart Expansion as Evolutionary Medicine

When I finally accessed the full expression of camel pose after five years of practice, I thought the lesson was about patience. About showing up. About trusting invisible progress.

And it was.

But as I've continued to ponder my relationship with this pose and what it represents, I've come to understand something much larger: what if backbends are evolutionary medicine for a species that has forgotten how to keep its heart open?

The Symbolism of the Body

The back of our body represents the past, and the front represents the present and future. When we're constantly hunched forward - shoulders rounded, chest caved in - we're not just creating poor posture. We're symbolically closing off our openness to what's possible now, to what has yet to be written.

We're amplifying our past while dimming our capacity for the present and future.

Consider this: Is our collective obsession with nostalgia, our heightened desire to "go back", connected to the majority of us spending our time physically collapsed forward? Are we weakening our openness to the present and future by literally closing off our hearts?

When we move into backbends, we're quite literally reopening what we've been protecting. We're beaming our heart center outward - toward source, toward others, toward love itself.

The heart center is the bridge.

The Science of the Heart

At a Tony Robbins seminar last year, I learned something that connected deeply with my yoga practice: we create our own energy. We can shift our state in minutes by changing our physiology, our breath, our focus.

In yoga, this capacity is called prana shakti, directing the life force through the breath. The first thing we do at birth is inhale. The last thing we do when we depart is exhale. Breath is our bridge between worlds.

But here's what fascinates me: scientifically, the heart is the body's most potent energy generator. It's an electromagnetic field 5,000 times stronger electrically than our brain and 100 times stronger magnetically. It continuously broadcasts our emotional state into the field around us.

The heart isn't just a pump. It's the bridge between intention and embodiment. It's the generator of the human energy field.

That's why we have phrases like "follow your heart." This is why heart coherence practices - whether through rapid-state change techniques or slower, deeper practices within yoga - transform not just how we feel, but how we show up in the world.

The Timeline of Transformation

It took me five years to fully express camel pose, and this timeline matters.

Backbends unlock with stored grief softens. When old protections loosen. When identity evolves. When the nervous system becomes safe enough. When the heart is ready to receive. When self-trust matures.

The root chakra grounds. The sacral flows. The solar plexus ignites. The throat expresses. The third eye perceives. The crown receives.

But the heart, the heart expands.

And expansion takes time.

When the chest opens physically, the heart opens energetically, and the psyche opens emotionally. It isn't a metaphor; it's how transformation actually works in the body. We cannot think our way into an open heart. We have to practice our way there.

The Awakened Heart Across Traditions

The first time I encountered Jesus was during a yoga flow. I was deep in practice, heart expanding, when suddenly, I felt his presence - not as doctrine, but as pure, radiant love.

I have come to understand why so many traditions speak of the heart as the doorway to the divine.

But as powerful as that experience was, my spiritual life has never belonged to a single lineage. That moment with Jesus was not the beginning of a conversion - it was a reintroduction. A reminder that the awakened heart, the courageous heart, the compassionate heart, wears many faces.

Over the years, on that mat and in meditation, I've felt this same heart through other archetypes - as if they were all facets of the same diamond, shining at different angles depending on what my soul needed.

The gentle mercy of Kuan Yin, who teaches that compassion can be a form of strength. The deep devotion of Mary Magdalene, who embodies love that is both tender and fierce. The quiet, steady grace of Mother Mary, the archetype of unconditional nurturing. The radiant serenity of the Buddha, whose heart-mind reflects a stillness that liberates suffering. The fierce, protective love of Isis, who restores what has been broken. The joyful, resonant heart of Hathor, who reminds us that pleasure and harmony are sacred. The creative flame of Brigid, whose warmth ignites truth and inspiration.

Different cultures. Different mythologies. Different wisdom traditions.

Yet every one of them points back to the same essential truth: The heart is the bridge. The heart is the teacher. The heart is the path.

My journey has never been about choosing a single spiritual doorway - it's been about recognizing that all of these archetypes echo the same message: Keep your heart open. Even when it hurts. Even when it takes years. Even when you feel like closing.

In Christian iconography, Jesus is depicted as the ultimate open heart: the Sacred Heart radiating light, unveiled chest, the heart as a portal to divine love. This imagery mirrors heart chakra symbolism so precisely that many comparative theologians describe Christ as the archetype of the awakened heart - not dogmatically, but energetically.

Jesus' teachings were always balanced: forgiveness for the past, possibility for the future. The back and front bodies are integrated. His entire ministry was rooted in ahimsa - non-violence, compassion, turning the other cheek, loving even enemies. Radical empathy. His teaching that "truth shall set you free" echoes Satya - not harsh truth or ego truth, but heart-centered, compassionate truth. His release of material clinging reflects these principles: Aparigraha - surrender, trusting in divine provision, living lightly, letting go of control.

But these principles aren't exclusive to Christianity. They're universal laws of the heart, expressed across every wisdom tradition.

What yoga taught me through camel pose - what five years of practice slowly rewired in my body - is the same thing each of these figures has been whispering for centuries:

The heart expands through courage, not through force. Through surrender, not collapse. Through presence, not perfection.

The awakened heart is not exclusive to any religion. It is the universal language of love, compassion, resilience, forgiveness, and connection - the very qualities that make us truly human.

Many spiritual teachers across cultures speak of the heart as the seat of the soul. This is where duality dissolves. This is where we remember our connection to all beings.

Why This Matters Now

I've been thinking about timing. About why this practice found me when it did. About what's happening in our collective moment.

We're living in a time of profound disconnection - from ourselves, from each other, from the earth, from source. So many of us are collapsing inward, protecting, closing off. Literally and energetically.

Look around. We're hunched over screens, rounded forward, hearts caved in. We're amplifying our past - our trauma, our divisions, our wounds - while our capacity for what's possible now, what's possible together, dims.

What if backbends are evolutionary medicine?

When we intentionally expand our heart space, we're not just stretching muscle and fascia. We're rewiring our nervous system to feel safe in openness. We're broadcasting a different frequency into the world. We're modeling what it looks like to be both vulnerable and strong at the same time. We're activating our capacity for empathy, connection, and unconditional love.

Every time we practice a heart-opening pose, we're training ourselves to meet life - and each other - with an open heart instead of a protected one. We're discovering that expansion doesn't mean weakness. It means courage.

This is not a metaphor. This is physics. This is neuroscience. This is the evolution of consciousness happening through our bodies.

Love is the equilibrium of the entire system. The heart is the quiet center that stabilizes everything else. The heart is where duality dissolves, where we remember our connection to all beings.

An Invitation

This is why I feel called to share not just my story, but this possibility:

What if we incorporated heart-expanding postures into daily life?

Not just in yoga studios, but everywhere. In our morning routings. In our work breaks. In moments of conflict. In times of grief. Imagine these practices becoming how we transform - individually and collectively.

If this resonates, consider finding one heart-opening movement to practice daily. it doesn't have to be camel pose. It could be simply standign with your arms stretched wide, chest lifted, breathing deeply for sixty seconds. It could be lying over a bolster with your heart elevated. It could be any posture that invites your body to expand rather than contract, to open rather than protect.

You might practice it when it feels vulnerable. When you're angry. When you're scared. When you're grieving. When you're celebrating.

Because every time you choose expansion over protection, you're not just changing yourself. You're changing the field around you. You're participating in the collective awakening of the human heart.

The wisdom of showing up to each practice, dropping in, learning, listening, feeling, shedding, embodying - I hope I have a hundred more years of experiencing this practice.

And I hope you'll join me in bringing this medicine to a world that could use more open hearts.

The opening will come. For you. For all of us.

And it starts with a simple, radical act of expanding your heart.