Some of these photographs were taken years ago, a younger body, a different chapter. I keep them here, not out of nostalgia, but because they tell part of the truth of this work.

In those images, I could hold poses that required strength, flexibility, and a nervous system that hadn't yet navigated the hormonal shifts of midlife. And honestly? I’d probably could still attempt some of them today. But that is no longer the point, and that shift in perspective is everything. The midlife body is not a lesser version of what came before. It is a wiser one. Joints carry more history. The nervous system has been through more. Hormonal changes affect everything from tissue elasticity to how we recover, how we hold tension, and where we store stress. A practice that honors this isn't a scaled-back practice, it is a more intelligent one.

This is the beauty I have come to love about a changing body: it asks you to stop performing and start listening. It invites you to trade the pose for the breath underneath it. To discover that the most powerful thing you can do on the mat, and off it, is to move from a place of deep, grounded awareness rather than force.

That is what I teach now. Not because I can't do what I once did, but because I finally understand what my body actually needs.