What the Body Reveals in Stillness
I was standing still this morning. I love doing this, and I practice it often. I get lost in it — standing, breathing, just resting in Mountain Pose.
I’m continually amazed by how much is revealed when I stop moving. How much I’m bracing, without even realizing it.
As I stand, I begin to feel how much tension is contorting me — in my torso, my legs, my shoulders, my neck. It’s not dramatic or obvious at first. It’s subtle. Layered. Quiet. And it makes me wonder: How long have I been ignoring this?
I’ve always known I carry tension. Pain. But for a long time, I resisted simply being here with it. I practice stillness in many ways, but something about standing reveals so much more. When I allow myself to pause, time seems to soften. My breathing lightens. My attention sharpens. I become deeply interested in sensation — every ripple, every pull, every holding pattern.
Standing still becomes anything but still — a complex story of the past woven into unconscious contractions, ebbing and flowing.
The Body Tells Its Story
As awareness deepens, I can feel layers of contraction spiraling through my body, subtly bending and twisting me into awkward shapes. When you pause long enough, you begin to sense that every tissue carries a story — a history written into muscle, fascia, breath, and bone.
This morning, my body began to draw forward and twist — a familiar cringing, protective shape. I noticed a leftward pull, a subtle leaning and rotation. I didn’t resist it. I didn’t try to correct it. I followed it with curiosity.
The pathway felt magnetic — like every fiber knew exactly how to take that shape. It was powerful. Natural.
And suddenly, I wasn’t just in my body.
I wasn’t in an accident or out of surgery.
I was back in the kitchen.
How Work Shapes the Body
I could feel it clearly — I was working at our family restaurant, Mr. Pizza in Rochester, Minnesota. I could sense everything: the sounds, the smells, the intensity, the pace. My body subtly adjusted as if reaching across the counter, pivoting, turning.
My mind whirled through memories of throwing pizzas into the oven, pivoting back and forth. Pivoting again. Cutting. Boxing. Moving.
Over and over.
The same pattern.
The same posture.
Year after year.
I had shaped my body to be efficient.
Leaning forward.
Twisting.
Reaching.
Reacting.
My nervous system learned every detail of that environment — how to move quickly, how to respond instantly, how to stay in overdrive. Add in past injuries, illness, stress, and exhaustion, and over time pain became normal. Burnout became normal. Drinking became normal — a way to cope with pain I didn’t yet understand.
I stretched. I exercised. I rested. I sought help.
But the pain always came back.
Because I was never addressing the pattern beneath it all.
Learning to Feel What Was Hidden
It wasn’t until I discovered somatic yoga and breathwork that I began to understand what was actually happening inside me. And even then, I had no idea how thick the layer of resistance was — the resistance that prevented my mind from seeing the tension that was holding me so tightly.
It’s so difficult to sense our own body. Profoundly difficult.
Somatic practice taught me something humbling:
I didn’t know myself nearly as well as I thought I did.
Six years later, I can honestly say something surprising — I feel like I know even less now. Not because I’ve gone backward, but because awareness has expanded. The deeper you look, the more complexity you discover.
Life is like that.
A leaf looks simple… until you study it.
An ant seems small… until you observe it closely.
Everything unravels into infinite detail.
Turning inward is no different.
The body is like that.
The breath is like that.
The mind is like that.
The more subtle the awareness, the more layers reveal themselves.
A Universe Within
That’s why Mountain Pose continues to feel so fresh and alive for me. The stiller I am — the longer I stay — the more truth reveals itself: there is an entire universe within.
And the more I unravel it, the better I feel — not because I’ve “fixed” anything, but because I’m getting out of the way… because I am finally listening.
There is always more to discover.
Always more to refine.
Always more to feel.
And instead of that being discouraging, I find it deeply exciting.
A Mirror for You
If you’ve ever felt stuck in one posture, one pattern, one way of holding yourself — physically or emotionally — your body may be telling a story too.
You don’t have to fix it.
You don’t have to stretch it away.
You don’t have to force change.
Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is pause… stand still… and listen.
We are not meant to break down as we age.
We are meant to refine, enhance, and deepen ourselves.
That is the heart of this work.
That is the dedication behind Pneuma Yoga.
Simple practices.
Honest awareness.
Turning inward.
Reshaping health and vitality — not by force, but by presence.
Sometimes, all it takes…
is standing still.
Ahimsa: My First Step into Yoga Philosophy
There is no yoga without nonviolence.
I stumbled into yoga almost by accident… or more accurately, by injury.
I tore my pectoral in a jiu-jitsu sparring match, and since I couldn’t lift weights anymore, I looked elsewhere. My earliest yoga “practice” came through infomercials and biceps—P90X with Tony Horton. That was my gateway into western yoga, and honestly, I loved it.
From there I dove deeper into YouTube flows, DVDs from the library, and random classes—still mostly focused on the physical: stretching, sweating, pushing myself. I had no idea yoga held anything deeper. I was barely scratching the surface.
Stumbling Toward Something More
Eventually I reached a point where I knew I needed something different. My health was falling apart. My nervous system was burned out. The restaurant job was crushing me. I felt stuck in a loop of illness, stress, and the terrifying sense that there was nowhere to go for real resolution.
Inside me, something was aching to come out. I knew it had to do with holistic health. I suspected yoga was involved somehow, but I didn’t yet understand the depth of yoga or how much wisdom it carries about the human mechanism. I remember wondering, Do I really want to teach yoga classes? What could possibly be so special about yoga?
Back then, I had no idea.
Stuck in Survival Mode
My life at that time felt like one long, stressed-out shutdown response.
I was working long hours in a chaotic restaurant environment. My body was in too much discomfort to keep going, yet I didn’t see a way out. Simply surviving each day was a battle. Running a business on top of that was another battle I had no capacity to fight.
I felt skill-less, empty, like I had nothing of value to offer the world. My health was declining and my sense of self collapsed with it. Shame, exhaustion, self-judgment—they were my constant companions.
I believed deeply that the body could heal itself, and I believed nutrition was the key. I followed what I thought was a “healthy” eating lifestyle to fix my gut pain. But nutrition is confusing, and everyone claims their way is the right way. I ate whole foods and followed paleo because people I trusted told me it was the answer.
Still, my body kept failing.
Later, Ayurveda would completely transform my understanding of food, digestion, and what “healthy” actually means—but that wisdom came much later. At the time, all I knew was this:
I was not okay. And I couldn’t fix it with willpower alone.
My First Real Step Into Yoga
When I eventually enrolled in a yoga therapy program—right at the start of COVID, entirely over Zoom—I was completely ungroomed as a yogi. I knew nothing except poses. Yet there I was: signed up for a 1,000-hour training, committed to seeing it through.
That program cracked something open in me.
I began to actually study yoga—not just the shapes, but the philosophy. The depth of yoga was overwhelming at first. The sages who shaped this science were some of the most intelligent minds to ever live. Their teachings were dense, intricate, and profound. Hard to grasp at first… but captivating.
Slowly, the philosophy began to seep into me.
And what hit me the hardest was Ahimsa.
Ahimsa: The Foundation of Yoga
The first concept I truly met was Ahimsa—nonviolence.
It is the very first yama, the first branch of the first limb.
It is literally the beginning of yoga.
At first it seemed simple: Don’t be violent.
I wasn’t hitting anyone. I didn’t think of myself as harmful. I had no awareness of the subtle ways I punished myself, the frustration simmering inside me, the harshness I directed inward. So I thought:
“Okay, cool—what’s next?”
But as I sat with Ahimsa, something shifted.
I began to hear the violence that lived inside me.
Seeing My Own Violence
As I reflected on Ahimsa, I saw how deeply I was harming myself:
the way I talked to myself
the shame and self-blame
the comparisons and judgments
the constant inner criticism
the pushing past my limits
the overworking, the drinking, the refusal to rest
I realized that the deepest violence in my life wasn’t external.
It was internal.
Yoga teaches pratipaksha bhavana—cultivating the opposite.
When negative or harmful thoughts arise, we consciously shift toward their opposite: thoughts that are true, kind, supportive, aligned.
The mind is incredibly powerful.
It shapes our experience of reality.
It colors everything we perceive.
It can create us or destroy us.
If we repeat violent stories inside our mind, the body will live inside that violence.
Learning Ahimsa meant finally seeing this clearly—
and then slowly choosing a different direction.
Creating a Nonviolent Inner Environment
If healing is the goal, we must build an inner world that supports healing.
The body is unbelievably intelligent and wants to move toward balance.
But it cannot heal if the mind is constantly attacking it.
Ahimsa is not just “be kind.”
It is a radical commitment to:
dropping shame and self-punishment
interrupting cycles of judgment and comparison
noticing where we are sharp, cruel, or impatient
choosing thoughts and actions that support life, not harm it
Yogi Swami Rama said:
“Love all and exclude none.”
That includes ourselves.
If we want true health, we must become love within—not as sentimentality but as alignment with our true nature.
Violence is everywhere in the world. But it doesn’t have to live in us.
Ahimsa in Practice: Food, Animals, and Daily Life
For me, Ahimsa showed up in a clear and unexpected way: food.
I’ve been vegetarian or plant-based for years, but through Ahimsa, that choice deepened. It helped me see the subtle violence not only toward animals, but toward my own body and the earth.
Ahimsa became a practice of:
nonviolence toward my body
nonviolence toward other beings
nonviolence toward the planet
And no, this doesn’t mean perfection.
Negativity still arises. Old patterns still surface. The mind still reacts.
But the practice becomes:
Notice. Breathe. Choose differently.
We can learn to stay grounded enough inside that we are not so easily pulled into reactive violence—whether in thought, word, or action.
No Yoga Without Ahimsa
Yoga is not about flexibility or strength.
It is about creating a mind and heart that can hold life without causing harm.
Ahimsa is the very beginning.
It is the root.
The ground of yoga.
Without nonviolence, there is no yoga—only performance, ego, or spiritual decoration.
Ahimsa reminds me:
to speak more gently to myself
to give my body time and space to heal
to step out of self-destruction
to move through the world with a little more care
If you want to explore your truest health, start here.
Notice where violence lives in your thoughts, your habits, your choices—then cultivate the opposite, little by little.
Healing is not just physical.
It is mental, emotional, and energetic.
Create a nonviolent inner environment, and the body will know what to do.