Reclaiming Space
by Nicola Colville
There’s something powerful about rolling out a yoga mat. It doesn’t look revolutionary. It doesn’t make headlines. But in its own quiet way, it can be.
International Women’s Day often celebrates women who lead loudly — who break barriers, build companies, raise families, and shift systems. And rightly so. But in a yoga studio, strength looks different. It’s less about proving and more about inhabiting. Yoga invites women back into their bodies — not as objects to be shaped, but as places to be lived in.
For many of us, that’s no small thing.
We grow up absorbing messages about how our bodies should look, move, shrink, stretch, or take up less space. Even wellness spaces can subtly echo that narrative — stronger, leaner, more flexible. Achieve the pose. Master the shape. But over time, something softer — and perhaps braver — begins to unfold in practice.
The pose stops being about appearance.
It becomes about how it feels.
The mirror becomes less interesting than the breath.
The comparison quietens.
The striving softens.
And slowly, almost without noticing, we begin to reclaim space in our own skin. In class, I see women at every stage of life — students, mothers, grandmothers,
professionals, caregivers, leaders. Some move with visible ease, others with visible effort. Some rest when they need to. Some hold steady. None of it is performative. It’s simply human.
There is something deeply resonant about choosing to inhabit your body rather than critique it.
To feel your feet press into the mat.
To sense your lungs expand.
To stay — even when the posture asks something of you.
Strength, here, isn’t loud. It doesn’t demand attention. It’s the quiet steadiness of staying present. It’s the courage to soften when everything in you wants to brace. It’s the wisdom to rest without apology.
International Women’s Day reminds us of progress still to be made in the world. But perhaps it also offers a quieter invitation — to consider the territory closest to home.
Your own body.
To take up space fully.
To stand tall without shrinking.
To breathe deeply without holding back.
Reclaiming space doesn’t always look like marching forward. Sometimes it looks like lying in Savasana, trusting that you are enough without doing more.
And maybe that’s where real strength begins — not in how we are seen, but in how we
choose to inhabit ourselves.
Rolling out a mat.
Closing the eyes.
Coming home.
Namaste
Nix
