What Is Yoga, Actually?

For many of us, yoga begins as something we do. A class. A stretch. A way to feel better in the body. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s a very natural and common doorway, but if you stay with it, if you keep returning to the mat, to the breath, to the quiet moments in between, you might start to notice something shift.

Yoga begins to feel less like something you do, and more like something you enter into - kind of like a way of being, or a relationship. 

What most people call “yoga” today often looks like stretching, exercise, or a wellness routine squeezed into a 60-90 minute class. And that has its place. It supports the body. It can steady the mind. It can create a pause in a busy day. But traditionally, yoga points to something much deeper.

In the classical sense, yoga is a practice of awareness. A steady turning toward what is here - sensations, thoughts, patterns, reactions - without immediately trying to fix or change them.

For a beginner, this might be as simple as noticing the breath. Or feeling the difference between effort and surrender. Or noticing how quickly the mind wanders, and gently bringing it back.

After you bring in some consistency and become more experienced, you begin to see the subtle habits of the mind more clearly. The ways we grasp, resist, identify, avoid. The ways we move through the world, often unconsciously.

Over time, your awareness starts to expand, the mind will start to clarify, the nervous system will settle. You become less reactive, more present and a little more at home in yourself. 

So… what is yoga then?

If we go back to one of the foundational texts, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, yoga is defined in a way that has very little to do with stretching.

Here are the first four sutras (translated simply):

1. “Now, the teaching of yoga begins.” (atha yoga-anuśāsanam)
2. “Yoga is the steadying of the movements of the mind.” (yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ)
3. “Then the seer abides in its true nature.” (tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe’vasthānam)
4. “At other times, the seer is absorbed in the fluctuations of the mind.” (vṛtti-sārūpyam itaratra)

That’s it. No mention of flexibility. No mention of exercise or stretching. Because yoga, at its core, is about the mind. The practice we do on the yoga mat is just one training ground.

Let’s break that down

1. “Now, the teaching of yoga begins.”

It’s basically saying: pay attention. When the practitioner (you) is ready, the sign or the teacher will appear. 

Yoga isn’t something you casually dabble in once a week when you feel like it. It’s a practice that asks for curiosity, a bit of consistency, and some honesty about where you are at. And kindness is at the heart of the practice. 

2. “Yoga is the steadying of the movements of the mind.”

Those movements, vrittis, are your thoughts, worries, stories, overthinking loops. The same mental noise that fuels anxiety, distraction, and that constant feeling of “I can’t switch off.”

So yoga, in its original sense, is about learning how not to be completely run by that. It's the practice of changing your relationship to the contents of your mind. Not by force suppression and not by trying to empty your mind. But by creating space - gently and consistently - so the mind is no longer in charge of you. 

3. “Then the seer abides in its true nature.”

“The seer” is essentially you. But not the anxious, overthinking, reactive version.

It’s the part of you that can observe. The part of you that can witness. When you can step back from the mind, even just a little, you are able to disengage from the constant stream of internal dialogue. You’re just… aware. 

4. “At other times, the seer is absorbed in the fluctuations.”

Most of the time, we’re completely caught up in our thoughts. We don’t notice them, we become them.

“I’m anxious”

“I’m not good enough”

“Everyoe is angry at me”

Yoga says: that’s not you, that’s your mind doing its thing. 

And most of us are living there, all the time.

So where did modern yoga go sideways?

Somewhere along the way, yoga got reduced to the physical. There even became a strong focus on how it looks, rather than what it does. Movement isn’t the problem - the problem is when the physical practice, alone, becomes “Yoga”. Because traditionally, the shapes we make (asana) were (and are) just one small part of a much, much bigger system. Yoga is like a ginormous, ever expansive tool-box we can draw upon to enhance our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. All simultaneously. 

For a lot of people, the physical practice but really, this definition of yoga is about changing your relationship with your mind. From a psychological perspective, the mind produces constant thoughts and we tend to believe and identify with them. This can create a lot of stress, anxiety, and reactivity! Yoga offers something similar to what you might learn in therapy: You can notice your thoughts without getting swept up in them.

We call it a yoga practice for a reason - we practice, practice, practice - long after we roll our mat up and put it away.