5 Simple Ways to Find Your Connection This September

1. Start with the breath

Before you reach for your phone in the morning, take five conscious breaths:

• Inhale for four counts

• Hold for four

• Exhale for six

Allow the longer exhale to settle your nervous system and connect to the present moment.

2. Move your body before your mind gets busy

The best time to practice is before the day has had a chance to fill up. Even ten minutes of gentle movement in the morning, a few sun salutations, some hip openers on the floor, or simply standing in mountain pose and breathing, creates a thread of calm you can return to all day.

3. Step outside without your phone

Connection to ourselves is often blocked by constant external noise. One of the simplest and most radical things you can do this September is to take a ten minute walk without your phone.

Notice three things you can see, two you can hear, one you can feel.

4. Create one small ritual

Rituals tell the nervous system that something important is about to happen. They create a container for presence in an otherwise distracted day.

Yours doesn't need to be elaborate. It could be the same cup of tea in the same chair every morning before anyone else is awake. A moment of stillness before you start the car. Three breaths before you open your laptop. The ritual matters less than the intention behind it: I am here. I am choosing to be present.

5. Come back to your community

We are not designed to do life alone. One of the things yoga gives us, beyond the physical practice, is a room full of people who are all trying, in their own way, to show up more consciously in the world.

If September has you feeling scattered or disconnected, the simplest thing you can do is come in. Roll out your mat. Breathe alongside other people for an hour. Let the practice do what it has always done.

We are here. Every day. And we would love to see you.