I’ve spent more than two decades teaching yoga, and one of the more entertaining developments I’ve witnessed is the wellness industry’s ability to continually reinvent exercise while convincing us that whatever we’re currently doing probably isn’t enough.
Hot Pilates, reformer Pilates, cycling, spin, sculpt, HIIT. There’s always something newer, harder, hotter, or more intense competing for our attention. And apparently, if you’re not dripping sweat, tracking your progress, or pushing yourself to exhaustion, you’re not getting the most out of your workout.
Meanwhile, yoga seems to have acquired this peculiar reputation as something practiced by a small group of people sitting around chanting and contemplating the universe. Which, to be fair, we do sometimes. But anyone who’s completed the full Primary Series of Ashtanga or practiced ninety minutes of challenging hot yoga knows that yoga can absolutely kick your ass. I don’t care how fit you think you are.
What interests me isn’t whether Pilates is better than yoga or whether one workout burns more calories than another. I think movement in all its forms has value, and I’m genuinely glad people are finding ways to enjoy it. What concerns me is how effectively the wellness industry has turned our desire to feel better into a perpetual cycle of wanting more.
When Wellness Becomes Another Thing to Achieve
Yoga philosophy offers an interesting perspective on this. In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Santosha is one of the five Niyamas, commonly translated as contentment. It’s not about abandoning ambition or accepting circumstances that genuinely need to change. It’s about examining our tendency to postpone satisfaction until we’ve achieved something else.
Then there’s Aparigraha, one of the Yamas, which encourages non-grasping and asks us to examine our attachment to acquiring more. More possessions, more recognition, more accomplishments, and perhaps another monthly membership to whatever fitness concept is currently having its moment.
These teachings are particularly inconvenient for an industry that depends on convincing us we’re perpetually one purchase away from becoming our best selves.
And I’m not suggesting that the wellness industry is inherently bad. I own a yoga studio. I understand the economics of running a business, and I believe instructors deserve to earn a sustainable living. But I also recognize the contradiction of teaching nonattachment while worrying about enrollment, revenue, and whether enough people will walk through the door to pay the rent.
You have to appreciate the irony.
Yoga Was Never Just About the Workout
Somewhere along the way, we’ve become remarkably good at evaluating movement according to its physical outcomes. How many calories did we burn? How much stronger are we? How quickly can we see results?
Those things aren’t necessarily unimportant, but they’re not the entirety of what yoga offers.
Patanjali describes yoga in Sutra 1.2 as Yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ, commonly interpreted as the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. The practice is fundamentally concerned with our relationship to our thoughts, perceptions, and patterns of behavior. The physical postures are one part of a much larger system.
And that’s what I find so fascinating about yoga’s place in the modern wellness industry. We have an extraordinarily sophisticated practice that can challenge the body intensely while simultaneously asking us to question why we’re so attached to achievement in the first place.
You can sweat through an entire Ashtanga practice, discover muscles you didn’t know existed, and still be invited to consider whether becoming stronger actually makes you any more worthy of your own approval. That’s a pretty remarkable combination.
Maybe We Don’t Need Another Upgrade
I don’t think yoga needs to compete with every new fitness trend, and I certainly don’t believe everyone needs to practice yoga exclusively. If you love Pilates, go to Pilates. If cycling makes you happy, get on the bike. There’s plenty of room for different approaches to movement.
But I do think we should question an industry that increasingly markets wellbeing through dissatisfaction. When every new program promises to improve us, it’s worth asking whether we’re pursuing something meaningful or simply responding to another suggestion that we’re not quite good enough yet.
Santosha doesn’t tell us to stop growing. Aparigraha doesn’t prohibit us from enjoying the things we’ve worked hard to acquire. Both invite us to become more discerning about what we’re pursuing and why.
After more than twenty years, I still find that one of yoga’s greatest strengths is its ability to challenge us without requiring us to dislike who we are when we begin. The physical practice can be demanding, humbling, and occasionally downright ridiculous. The philosophical practice asks us to examine what we’re doing with all that effort.
And perhaps that’s what makes yoga so difficult to package into the next big wellness trend. It doesn’t necessarily promise to turn us into someone better. It asks us to become more aware of the person who’s already here.
Which, admittedly, is a considerably harder sell than great abs in thirty days.
xo,
🧘🏻♀️🧪
Lindsey