I was still new to my practice when it happened. I was working through Prasarita Padottanasana, the wide-legged forward fold, and I wanted the shape. The full, beautiful expression of it. So I pushed, reaching for a form I wasn’t actually ready for yet.
I felt it tear.
The injury put me out of my hamstring for months. Slow, humbling months of learning how to stretch gently again, how to listen for what was actually happening in my body instead of chasing what I thought it should look like. That injury taught me more about yoga than any pose ever had. It taught me that healing, like the practice itself, can’t be forced. It has to be listened to.
That was the moment I understood the difference between doing yoga to the body and doing yoga with it. From the outside they can look almost the same. From the inside they are two completely different practices.
Yoga isn’t a shape you achieve. It’s a conversation you’re willing to have.
The difference between pushing and listening
So much of what we’re taught about yoga, and about the body in general, comes from a “no pain no gain” mindset. Push harder. Go deeper. Get the full expression of the pose. Somewhere along the way, effort became the measure of a good practice.
But the body doesn’t respond to force the way the mind imagines it will. Muscles that are pushed past what they’re ready for don’t open, they brace. A nervous system that’s told to override its own signal doesn’t relax, it goes on guard.
Working with the body means treating sensation as information, not an obstacle. It means asking what’s actually here today, rather than what you think should be here. Some days that’s a deep expression of a pose. Some days it’s a fraction of it. Both are the practice.
Why the edge is information, not a finish line
You’ve likely heard the phrase “find your edge” in a class. It’s often taught as a place to push toward, a wall to lean into. But your edge isn’t a wall. It’s a conversation.
Moving slightly out of your edge, just enough to feel it, gives your body and nervous system enough of a new experience to grow from. Moving past it, forcing your way through resistance, tends to do the opposite: it teaches the body to brace and protect rather than to trust and soften.
This is the part that changes everything once you feel it: the edge isn’t where the pose ends. It’s where the real practice begins.
If you’d like to feel this for yourself, explore my guided yoga practices built around listening rather than forcing. Join the FREE Course HERE.
Letting go of judgment as part of the practice, not separate from it
There’s a quieter way we push against the body, and it has nothing to do with muscle. It’s judgment. The mental commentary on how a pose looks, whether it’s “good enough,” whether you look like the person next to you or the teacher at the front of the room.
Judgment is forcing too. It’s just forcing with the mind instead of the body. And it has the same effect: it pulls you out of what you’re actually feeling and into how you think you should look while feeling it.
How a pose looks was never the point. How it feels is. When you let go of judging the shape, you finally have room to notice what’s happening underneath it, and that noticing is where the practice actually lives.
Benefits of practising yoga this way
When you shift from pushing to listening, the changes tend to show up gradually, both on the mat and off it. Many people find this way of practising supports:
- A more honest relationship with your own limits
- Less bracing, less strain, fewer overuse injuries
- A nervous system that learns to trust rather than defend
- More self-compassion, on the mat and in daily life
- A quieter inner critic
- A practice that actually feels sustainable over years, not just weeks
If you’d like to go deeper, you’ll find full-length classes, guided journeys, and a growing library inside the community.
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Here’s a way to notice the gap between forcing and listening, right now:
- Come into a gentle stretch, any one you know well. Take it to what feels like 80% of your usual depth.
- Pause. Instead of pushing further, simply breathe and notice what’s actually there: where there’s ease, where there’s resistance, whether anything softens on its own without you doing anything at all.
- Notice whether your mind is commentating on how the stretch looks, or whether you can stay with how it feels. Gently return to the feeling each time the judgment shows up.
That noticing, without pushing and without judging, is the practice.
Continue the practice from home: Embodied Voyage
If this is resonating, Embodied Voyage offers a growing library of practices built on exactly this principle: working with the body you have today, not the one you think you should have.
Yoga That Works With the Body: FAQs
Not in the way it’s often taught. Real progress tends to come from consistent, honest practice at the edge of sensation, not from forcing past it. Working with the body builds trust and range over time; forcing it tends to build tension and setbacks.
It’s less about finding a fixed point and more about staying curious. If a sensation feels sharp, urgent, or like you’re holding your breath to get through it, you’ve likely gone past it. If it feels present but workable, you’re probably right at it.
That’s completely normal, and it’s part of the practice too. The goal isn’t to never notice the thought, it’s to notice it and gently come back to the feeling underneath it, every time.
