Yoga at OHM Newsletter Vicyasa™ 10/27 - 11/2/2025: You are ENOUGH!

YOUR BASELINE IS ENOUGH  
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody" — Maya Angelou

(This week's newsletter was composed by our dynamic on-demand teacher and full time writer Elinor Cohen. Check out her Instagram HERE and her amazingly empowering advanced & intermediate sessions on our on-demand archives.)

Oftentimes we think we need to do something extraordinary to be deemed worthy of existence. We believe the (untrue) narrative that we must win an award, accomplish a feat, or be the best, but that simply isn’t true. The truth is that just being is enough.

Your baseline of simply existing is more than enough. Anything extra is truly that: extra. We’ve been taught that ordinary, average, mediocre, good, and even acceptable are unacceptable. What a shame that is. Society has taught us that middle of the road won’t get you anywhere; no, you need to be excellent. Coasting is a curse. Status quo equates to stagnation, which equates to a dying off of creativity. The world pushes these competitive lies all the time and it would be silly to think we should be above believing them. Still, we don’t need to succumb to them.

It’s fun to be excellent. It’s exciting to win. It’s rewarding to accomplish a feat for which you’ve worked hard. At the same time, there’s value in having a solid baseline. Owning your place in life means knowing who you are. It means having a strong foundation off of which you can build and expand but always come back to. It’s a home base.

When you have a strong baseline, you establish consistency. You become reliable, dependable, and the kind of person people know they can trust. The rare times in which you deviate from that norm may cause others to take a second look before they settle back in; that’s not a bad thing, but neither is your steady state.

There’s something to be said for having a steady state. After all, a little up and down is fun every once in a while, but we wouldn’t want the boat ride to be full of rocky waters the whole way through. That would be simply exhausting and nauseating. Calm waters with the occasional breeze are generally preferred.

The idea of coming back to your baseline rings true especially during this time of year. Vata season, the transition from fall into early winter, is characterized by erratic, windy energy. If lots of change seems to be happening right now, that’s normal. The wind isn’t something to fight but still, we must find balance in the midst of it so we don’t get swept away. The way to do that is to find grounding.

In your yoga practice, look for opportunities where you can ground down and get steady. Perhaps you use the times when you’re low to the mat (malasana, child’s pose (balasana), humble warrior, etc.) to pay extra attention to your foundation. Perhaps you take an extra breath in between transitions to make sure you’re solid before you advance forward. For instance, before reversing your warrior two, make sure both your front foot and your back foot are firmly rooted and your quads are fired up enough so when you flip your palm and reach back, you don’t have to compensate by straining the lower back or straightening the front leg.

Once you have an understanding of your baseline, you can do anything. A solid foundation frees you up to get expressive, playful, and experimental. There’s a saying that rules are meant to be broken, and while that’s not always the case, those words are valuable. You have to know what the rules are and have mastered them in order to deviate from them. As kids, we’re told to color within the lines. As adults, we’re told to draw free form. We learn the guidelines, we establish a baseline, we identify our sense of selves so later on, we’re free to create even more than we knew was possible.

This season, be solid and grounded in your foundation. Establish your baseline. Own your mediocrity. From there, you can do anything.

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NAMASTE,
Victor Cotto
www.YogaWithVictor.com
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