This Week's Mindful Morsel 🍪 | December 10, 2025 — let yourself be supported
Happy good Wednesday đź’ś
I used to get frequent headaches after a yoga practice that included plank pose. I thought I was powering through and improving my strength because I would be holding on for dear life until whoever was leading the session cued moving on. And then a smidge after practice…tension headache city.
Wamp wamp.
I thought it had to be the posture, not me. Somehow my body wasn’t made to do that. So I avoided it and just stopped.
But I realized through a LOT of self exploration that this was happening because I was trying to push through the effort using the muscles around my neck and shoulders rather than my deep core.
I was utilizing an inefficient (and inadequate) set of muscles because the larger muscle group built to do that work wasn’t ready to do it on its own AND I hadn’t learned how to tap into that larger muscle set in a supportive way.
Sensing into our bodies can be hard because there’s a lot of noise and it can feel overwhelming to distinguish sensations. It’s like having too much on your task list — your attention is yanked in all kinds of directions and instead of intentionally giving your focus to one thing well, it feels haphazard and reactive.
Enter more consistent prop use. I’m still not the best with plank and can find myself relying on those smaller muscles at times, but it’s easier to catch and shift effort because I’ve spent the time getting to know my internal experience by quieting down the loudness with props.
Think of props as the equivalent of simplifying your to-do list — they gift you the opportunity to stop struggling against yourself, your ego, and overwhelming sensory information so you can give your attention more fully to the nuances of your internal experience.
Props can be the raddest addition to your practice and they’re no different than any other support system you lean into. I get that we have pride and we want to feel awesome at all the things, but awesome isn’t about projecting an inauthentic outward image. It’s knowing your body’s language and capabilities, leaning into where you’re at, which is ever-changing because you’re human living in this world.
So be kind to yourself and let something else support you.
With kind energy and an open heart,
