Yoga not only saved writer and yoga educator Sarah Ezrin before she became a mother, it’s also been instrumental in the way she raises her two sons. The lessons from her practice have been gathered together in a beautiful way in her first book, The Yoga of Parenting: Ten Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect with Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself. The Toronto-born, Los Angeles-raised, and Bay Area-based mother shares a relatable excerpt from The Yoga of Parenting, below. 

According to my phone, I spend an average of eight hours a day on social media (the irony of that entire statement is not lost on me, by the way). That’s the same amount of time many people spend their days working full-time. I justify it by telling myself that it’s for my “job,” too. I’m an “influencer” for a variety of brands and companies, so much of what I create online is for income, but that’s not all I’m doing on there. It’s a bit more complicated than that.

First, I really enjoy making content. There is a highly creative side to it, whether it’s filming funny videos for TikTok or writing essays on Instagram. These outlets feel akin to when I was a little girl and used to borrow my dad’s giant camcorder to record my most recent play. Second, it’s a way for me to stay connected with those I love most. With so many of my friends and family living apart, it enables me to remain in touch, and it’s also a way for me to share my sons growing up. My besties and I may not speak very often on the phone, but they still get to see my boys almost every day. Last, there is an element of community for me. I find great solace in being able to band together with strangers facing similar issues. It helps me feel much less alone when I can share about going through things such as my miscarriage, my eating disorder, or postpartum anxiety.

While I love it and it is such a huge part of my life (one-third of it, according to my phone’s stats on my usage), there is an incredibly dark side to social media for me. Periods when it has a chokehold on me. Periods when I get fixated on it, not unlike how I can fixate on food or anxious thoughts. Periods when I devote so much of my mental energy to thinking about what content I am going to create that I’m incapable of being present with my children.

My self-worth gets very tangled up in it all, too. If my “views” and “likes” are high, I feel high. This is not unsurprising given all the current research confirming that “likes” and “views” can create a dopamine hit to our brain that is similar to when one takes addictive drugs. But it also means that when my engagement is down, I feel very low. So low that I sometimes question myself as a writer, a creative, and frankly, someone worthy of love.

It is during these phases that I must remind myself— sometimes even force myself—to turn off my phone and get on my yoga mat. 

My yoga practice reminds me that I am not the amount of likes or follows I get, just as I am not defined by the poses I can or cannot do that day. As I watch my body and attention change every day and every year, I get to see in real time how much these external measures fluctuate and change. 

But perhaps more importantly, my yoga practice reminds me that deep inside of myself is a part of me that is unchanging, undefinable, and perfect. Poses will come and go, just as engagement goes up and down, but yoga reminds me that who I am at my core—who we all are—is indefinable and immeasurable because our truth is so much more magnificent than we could ever imagine.

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Parenting is hard enough as it is. Layer in the outside pressures of society’s ideas of what a “perfect parent” should look like and we have a recipe for suffering. Full disclosure: I have had my children repeat something amazing to “get the shot” for Instagram. I have been completely checked out at holiday gatherings and events because I was more swept up with the Instagram Reels or TikToks that I was creating than being present with my family. I literally TikTok’ed my way through labor with my second! I have gone down many a rabbit hole of looking at parents’ social media profiles, where everyone looks happy and fit and put together, and then comparing my life against theirs.

The profiles we see on social media are curated versions of people’s lives; they are aspects that people choose to share, not the entire picture. Thankfully, there seems to be a movement of profiles and influencer parents being way more “real.” I try very hard to be a part of this movement on my social channels, but as someone who participates in this world every day, I have to confess to you that even when I post videos of myself crying because I am overwhelmed and exhausted by motherhood or pictures “celebrating” the changes of my postpartum body, I am still picking the “best” ugly-truth picture.

In yoga, there is a concept known as the klesas (pronounced: kleshas). These are the obstacles on our path to self-realization. The very first one, the one that guides all the others, is ignorance of our true Self. A friend recently posted a meme on Instagram (I know, I know) that said, “People who shine from within don’t need a spotlight.” Well, I would like to revise that to say: people who know they shine from within do not need a spotlight.

Because we all shine from within. Yoga reminds us of that. Just as the big bang created the universe, we too were created from similar light and magic. I mean, think about how babies are made and created. 

We are all miracles.

For more info on Sarah Ezrin, you can follow her on Instagram and TikTok and visit her website. 

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