A Holiday from the World
A lot of us come to yoga to decompress. Though it wasn't my initial thought for starting yoga, I think deep down, perhaps it was. Being in the world is difficult for someone with anxiety. Being in the world is difficult for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, at least at times. So going to the yoga studio and getting low to the ground and going inward is a little holiday from the difficulty of being in the world. Though yoga provides a vacuum where stress doesn't seem to exist, it still pushes you to learn to navigate the uncomfortable feelings that come with living life.
In countless ways, yoga mirrors life. This is one. When you find yourself holding a pose for longer than you expected, you decide whether to stay in the pose and deal with the discomfort or to come out of the pose for good reason. You use the philosophy of sthira sukham asanam to make your decision. We look for comfort everywhere we go - with the outdoor or indoor temperature, the number of cars on the road, the number of students in yoga class, the amount of time we have in our days - but yoga shines awareness on the realism of our mind's demands. Is it possible for you to be comfortable in your current situation? Sometimes the situation needs to change, but sometimes you need to deal with the discomfort. Maybe you like it to be 75 degrees outside, but you have to deal with it being 79, or 89, or 52, or 22. Each situation bears a different reaction, for good reason. I have felt some degree of discomfort in public and private my whole life. I learned to deal with it at an early age, but it was and is unbearable at times. This is why I seek out practices that help me deal with the uncomfortable feelings. Part of that is accepting the reality of the situation.
Yoga's magicalness works through awareness. The more awareness, the more acceptance. The more awareness, the more you know what to do with yourself when things fall apart and to keep yourself from falling apart. The vacuum provides a respite and necessary self-study that helps you understand your connection to others, but it also is a place where you practice being uncomfortable and reacting appropriately - by that I mean reacting so that you come out of it with a sense of equanimity and autonomy and connection.