Grounded
Yoga Flow & Picnic
I wasn’t sure I’d go. It was Saturday morning, and I don’t know how everyone else feels at that point in the week, but for me—it’s the emotional hangover after carrying everything for five days straight. Physically, mentally, spiritually—I usually feel wrecked.
But this past Saturday, I chose to do something different. I signed up for a yoga flow & picnic. I wanted to do something that wasn’t just for productivity or socializing, but something that felt intentional. I’m an extrovert, yes—I love people, I love being outside—but this felt different. It was about slowing down with people, not for them.
The session was grounding. Gentle, kind. Our instructor, Francesca, shared that the word for the practice was: open. Open to the possibilities. Open to the now. And as I lay on my mat, my body softening into the grass beneath me, I felt it—this strange and peaceful connection to the world. Like I was a part of it again. I was with the grass. Present. Unhurried. No longer just Eduarda who dragged herself out of bed to attend yoga—I existed as part of the world around me. Not doing. Just being.
That stillness reminded me of something I’d forgotten: I love nature. I really do. You wouldn’t know that from a glance at my life now, but it’s always been a part of me. Since moving abroad, I’ve filled my life with other things—work, plans, screens, people—and somehow left little space for the things that bring me back to myself. But sitting on the grass, listening to the wind, it all came back.
Why don’t I do more of what I know restores me?
I wonder if it’s because I’ve bought into the story that there isn’t enough time. Or maybe I’ve convinced myself I’m not allowed to make time. But my body responded to that session with a kind of joy I haven’t felt in a while. It didn’t need noise, progress, or achievement—it needed breath. Stillness. Connection.
As someone who’s been sick more often than not these past six months, intentional breathing has felt like both a luxury and a reclamation. We breathe automatically, but when we do it with intention, something shifts. Something deep.
I liked the word open as our theme. It didn’t ask me to define it, just to feel it. For me, it meant being open to myself, to my environment, to shedding the armor I didn’t even know I was carrying. Just being. Existing. Present.
That picnic didn’t give me answers, but it offered better questions.
When was the last time I was truly connected with the world around me?
When did I last feel lost in a moment—not with worry, but with wonder?
It reminded me that life isn’t always meant to be dissected. Sometimes, the point isn’t to figure it out—it’s to feel it. To exist in it. Fully. Not floating in overwhelm but rooted. In my body. In my breath. In my life.