A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the sunshine in March —
the first real warmth my skin had felt all year —
in Zagreb, feeling like an entirely new and superior version of myself.

Relaxed.
Present.
Deeply content.
The kind of person who probably drinks water regularly and makes excellent life choices.

Fast forward to now…

…and I am back home, staring at my own routine like a horse that has absolutely no intention of jumping the fence in front of it.

Nothing is wrong.

This is the annoying part.

I like my life.
I like my classes.
I like my routine.

I am not trapped.
I am not burnt out.
I am not in need of a dramatic life overhaul.

And yet…

I am behaving like someone who has been asked to do something deeply unreasonable.

Like:

• reply to emails

• get up on time

• be a functioning adult

Frankly, the audacity of it all.

By the time you’re reading this, I will almost certainly have pulled myself together.

I will be back in the rhythm.
Teaching, ppracticing doing all the things.

Looking, from the outside, like a person who transitions seamlessly from holiday back into real life.

Which is very funny.

Because what you’re reading here is written from the middle of the wobble.

The best way I can describe it is this:

I am a perfectly capable horse…
standing in front of a perfectly manageable fence…

…absolutely refusing.

Not injured.
Not incapable.
Just… no.

Yoga talks a lot about discipline. Practice. Consistency.

(Abhyasa, if we’re being proper about it.)

And we often imagine the challenge is doing the thing.

Holding the plank.
Taking chaturanga.
Showing up on the mat.

But actually…

Sometimes the hardest part is not the doing.

It’s the returning.

Because when you go on holiday, something shifts.

You step out of structure.

You follow impulse instead of schedule.

You sit in the sun in March like a lizard that has finally found warmth again and think:

“Yes. This is who I am now.”

And then you come home…

…and suddenly you are expected to be a person with:

• a diary

• responsibilities

• a bin day

It’s a lot.

I don’t think this resistance is laziness.

I think it’s the body and mind going:

“Hang on… we were free a minute ago.”

And now we’re being asked to re-enter form.
Structure.
Routine.

And even when that routine is good…
even when we chose it…

There’s still a moment of rebellion.

This is where the practice actually lives.

Not in the perfect flow.
Not in the strong chaturanga.

But in that slightly awkward moment of:

“I don’t really want to… but I’m going to anyway.”

Not with force.

Just… gently getting back on.

Back to the horse.

Because the answer, I think, is not to whip it over the fence.

(It’s already in a mood. This will not help.)

Maybe it’s to:

• lower the fence

• walk it up slowly

• or just stand there for a minute and say
  “Alright. I see what’s happening here.”

So if you’ve ever come back from a break and found yourself weirdly resistant to your own perfectly nice life…

You’re not alone.

Somewhere, there is a horse —
fully capable, mildly dramatic —
staring at a fence it will absolutely jump…

Just not yet.

And in the meantime…

I’ll be over here, negotiating with myself.

What’s the thing you resist MOST when you get back from a break?