Learning to Hear the Voice of Self-Care

How to discern what really matters.

- By Rebecca Pacheco

I began practicing yoga so long ago that yoga pants didn't exist. We had only pants and you could wear them to yoga. I was 16 years old and it was the 1990s the height of fashion, I should note. But it wasn't the height of yoga's popularity. Far from it. Yoga was gaining interest beyond India, although it wasn't cool yet.

I loved yoga anyway. Actually, perhaps that's why I loved it. Our teenage years tend to be defined by feeling out of place. We no longer belong to our childhood nor are we wholly welcome or comfortable in the world of adults. We're interlopers. My fellow yogis were retirees older than my grandparents, yet despite all of the reasons I could have felt out of place, I didn't. I had been prepared for people to coo about how cute it was that I was there. Or ask where I learned about yoga. Or if I was lost. But my wise teacher made no such remarks. She merely looked at me, maybe a tad surprised and amused, and with unmistakable kindness. Benevolence, even.

This kid needs to be here. She didn't say this, but I heard it. Until recently, I had always attributed the voice to my teacher. After all, she had been looking at me when I heard the voice. No one else was nearby. I've since reconsidered. It's taken more than two decades of self-inquiry (much of it while wearing yoga pants), but I've come to recognize that voice as something else, simultaneously grander and more internal. Less mystical yet more profound. It was the voice of self-care.

WHAT EXACTLY IS SELF-CARE?