Tapas & the Sacred Work of a Home Practice

Tending the Fire From the Inside, Out

Wellness Within | Less Pushing, More Consistency

---

Welcome to Wellness Within, your monthly guide to being a healthy, kind human.

Each month, we explore all things whole-body wellness. This includes mental, spiritual, and emotional healing. Providing practical holistic health tips, offering spiritual tools, and ancient knowledge for being a peaceful, healthy, kind human being.

---

Some days, unrolling the mat feels like coming home to yourself. Other days, it feels like climbing a mountain made of laundry, distraction, and resistance.

If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to move, breathe, or ground (but not sure where to begin), you are truly not alone.

Storytime ✨️

For so many years, I lived far,
far away from my true self.
I was disconnected, overwhelmed,
and just living to survive.
Meanwhile, constantly reaching
outside of myself to feel better.
To find control within my chaotic life.

This led me down paths of
addiction, misalignment, and numbing.
I was a young mother of three,
navigating a world that didn’t reflect the life I desired.
There were SO many signs
I wasn’t where I needed to be.

My biggest rock bottom finally came,
and it cracked me w i d e open.
I was done ignoring myself.
Done not listening to my gifts
and what I truly needed.

It was my home practice, humble and imperfect,
that slowly brought me back to life.
Squeezing in 10 or 15 minutes of
movement when I could.
Finding space to learn to meditate between nap-times.

Through yoga, breath, self-reflection, and stillness,
I was able to start reconnecting to my body again.
This was a different kind of living.
And I kept showing up – again and again.

I was able to truly find myself and who I wanted to be.
I was able to forgive myself.
Find my heart again. And listen to the pain,
because damn, there certainly was a lot of it.

I began to heal.

Healing isn’t about perfection.
It’s about devotion.
It’s about acknowledging that
you are worthy of healing,
even when it feels hard.

The path of a home practice is sacred, but it’s not always easy. And maybe, it’s not supposed to be. It was on the hardest days that my home practice quite literally saved my life.

In yogic philosophy, there’s a word for this inner friction. The spark that invites us to show up, no matter what. Especially when it’s hard.

Tapas (a Sanskrit word meaning heat, discipline, or inner fire) is one of the Niyamas of the eight-limbed path of yoga. It’s the energy of transformation. Very much solar plexus chakra vibes.

The devotion to tending what matters most, even when it’s uncomfortable. Not out of punishment or perfectionism, but out of love for yourself, your process, and your evolution.

Tapas is the quiet fire that wakes you up in the morning and whispers,“keep showing up.”

Tapas

heat, discipline, or inner fire

---