Off The Grid, Onto The Mat.
At the end of 2025, my husband and I took our camper van out into the desert to say bub-bye to what had been, for so many of us, a challenging year. We found a remote spot with no phone signal and a spectacular view of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and we parked up and let out a sigh of relief.
If you have ever gone “off the grid”, you will know that this palpable feeling of relief is often followed by a creeping sense of restlessness. With no busy life chores to distract us and no phone to grab and scroll through at the first flicker of discomfort, we are left to ponder not only the immensity of nature, but also the inner workings of our minds. The heavy weight of stillness seems to trigger an almost panic-level surge in mental activity. Thoughts cartwheel and shimmy across our mental screens, vying for attention. The body starts to feel twitchy, eyes dart, and we experience what might best be described as “distraction withdrawals.”
Ironically, the very elements that prompt this response—an abundance of space, time and silence—are usually exactly what we need in order to bring ourselves back into balance. The challenge, of course, is to make it through these feelings of “withdrawals”, or “the twitches”, as I like to call them, in order to fully experience the benefits of unplugging from all that frazzles us.
Sitting underneath the vast desert sky, I felt a kind of metamorphosis occur. My darting eyes began to take in the incredible, awe-inspiring landscape and my ears gradually adjusted to the profound sound of silence. The feeling of restlessness gave way to a reluctant surrender which slowly melted into a quiet calm before finally seeping into my bones as a deep sense of peace. I had unstuck myself from the state of perpetually “doing” and wriggled my way into “being.”
“Well, that all sounds very magical,” you might say. “But what if we don’t have access to a camper van underneath the desert sky? How can we access a taste of this peaceful feeling back home?”
Enter: Your yoga mat!
The process of going “off the grid” in the desert reminded me of how yoga can feel once we finally land on our mats. With the emphasis on the body and breath and bringing our awareness into the present moment, yoga offers an escape from the frenetic pace of daily life each time we step onto the mat. When we practice yoga, we take time (if only a few minutes) and space (if only just the size of our mat!) to unplug and recharge. We unstick ourselves a little from the chaos all around us and gently coax our minds into the here and now.
So if our yoga mat is a magic portal to deep calm, why don’t we enthusiastically leap onto it as often as we can?
Much like the camper van in the desert, our yoga mats hold the promise of a mini “off the grid” experience, but somehow we procrastinate and have a hard time getting there. (If you have ever packed and prepped for a trip, you will know that the same process applies!) Why, when we think about doing something that we know will ultimately help us feel more peaceful, like yoga, does it feel like the meeting of two magnets? To which I reply, “The twitches!”
The pace of modern life has become so relentless that the idea of unplugging from it all can feel impossible. When we think of dropping everything and stepping onto our yoga mats, it can feel like jumping into a cold pool. So many of us put pressure on ourselves to do the ‘perfect’ yoga session—once our house is clean and we’re not tired and we’ve lost weight and we’re not overwhelmed and we have the right yoga outfit and… fill in the blank. I am here to encourage you to release ALL of that.
The benefits of yoga are available to you, right now, just as you are in this moment.
In your pajamas? No problem. Cluttered house? You only need a mat-sized space. Stressed? Overindulged? This will help. Slightly distracted by your cute dog or cat? Of course you are! Feeling achy and stiff? Join the club! Yes, we can pack enough food and water for five days and drive out into the middle of the desert to experience a metamorphosis into a more peaceful state of mind, but we can also wriggle our way towards calm right here in our living rooms.
Give yourself permission to start small. Set a timer for five or ten minutes. Walk past the pile of admin, give your dirty dishes the side eye, step over the laundry, unroll your yoga mat and invite the twitches along for the ride. Tell yourself that your only goal is to lie down on your yoga mat until your timer goes off, and be open to how you feel. That’s it! Maybe you will hug your knees into your chest, or gently drop your knees from side to side, or explore a few rounds of deep breathing. If that is all you do, you win the world! Maybe you will do nothing. That’s ok too. Perhaps you will experiment and do a little more, or you might even pick a class from your YLC library. ;)
Above all, be kind to yourself.
Release judgement and expectations. Come as you are. Do what you can. Know that when you step onto your mat, it is normal to experience feelings of restlessness. That is just your addicted mind un-sticking from all the “doing”. Also know that each time you flex your “unsticking” muscle, it becomes stronger. Observe how, after only a few moments of being on your yoga mat, the feelings of restlessness begin to melt and morph into something a little closer to peace.
“But must we turn our phones off in order to experience this melting and morphing?” I hear you ask, with a pained look. Yoga is the perfect opportunity to take a break from your phone. And god knows we all need one! But if leaving your phone in another room or on silent is out of the question, for whatever reason, give yourself permission to have it nearby. All of us are guilty of looking at our phones during yoga from time to time, and who among us hasn’t sent the odd text in a forward fold? That said, any amount of time we can spend intentionally disconnected from our phones and instead connected to our bodies and our breath counts.
When we give ourselves permission to show up as we are—twitches and all—we are much more likely to want to unplug and recharge by stepping onto our mats. Cold pool analogy be gone! Come on in, lovelies, the water’s warm! Instead of yoga being another burdensome thing on your “to do” list, see if you can think of your yoga mat as a magic carpet, just waiting to transport you out of the chaos, into your body and breath, into the present moment, into a feeling of space… if only for a few minutes. And give yourself permission to enjoy the ride.