Cosmic Yoga & Inner Reality

Majeeda Tatum-Anderson

8/15/20262 min read

When the Life We’re Living

No Longer Matches

Who We’re Becoming

What happens when the way we live and what we believe no longer align?

I think I’m discovering an answer to that question firsthand.

Right now, I’m experiencing a profound shift in my physical world—my Do-ing life. The things I have been doing, and even some of the ways I have understood myself, are no longer fully supported by my inner reality.

Something deeper is asking to be lived.

Who and what I am at the level of my soul self—my true Self—is asking for a transformation in the way I live in the physical world.

And I’m actually not at odds with that. Quite the opposite. There is something exciting and deeply affirming about realizing that your outer life is ready to become a more authentic expression of your inner one.

The difficult part is figuring out how to get from here to there.

How do we loosen our grip on an old version of ourselves long enough to become quiet, listen deeply, and recognize the path that is trying to emerge?

I don’t think our Western culture gives us much space for that kind of transition. We’re encouraged to keep producing, achieving, planning, and moving forward. There isn’t much room for a genuine change-of-life quest—a period when we stop knowing exactly where we’re going and allow ourselves to discover what wants to come next.

And sometimes, when the desire to follow another path becomes strong enough but we can’t see how to make the transition ourselves, life seems to create the opening for us.

Or, as I tend to see it, the Universe conspires to make it happen.

“Seek and you shall find. Ask and it will be given. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”

I live by that.

And perhaps because I live by it, I have learned to trust that the way eventually presents itself.

That doesn’t mean the transition is always comfortable. Far from it. Some of the changes that have redirected my life have been deeply painful; others have simply been uncomfortable enough to make staying where I was impossible.

That is where faith enters the picture.

Can I trust that I am moving in the right direction even when the familiar structures around me are being dismantled? Can I allow something to fall away without immediately knowing what will replace it?

For me, that is the practice.

This isn’t my first rodeo with transformation, and I’m happy to say I’m moving through this one with more grace than I have in the past.

I attribute much of that to yoga.

I have spent thousands of hours on my mat practicing how to remain present when something is uncomfortable. How to soften instead of immediately resisting. How to listen rather than force. How to meet difficulty not only gracefully, but gratefully.

Ironically, it was a traumatic change in direction that first brought me to my mat and invited me onto the yogic path.

Today, I am profoundly grateful that it did.

Because perhaps transformation isn’t always about figuring out how to hold our old lives together.

Sometimes the practice is trusting ourselves enough to let what no longer fits fall away—and becoming quiet enough to hear what is asking to emerge.