Bay: A Journey of Salt, Sweat, and Stillness

Life often feels like a tornado, between deadlines, relationships, responsibilities, and the endless scroll of expectations. I was still teaching yoga, still showing up for classes, and had just become a mom, but deep down, I wondered if I had the strength to hold space for a retreat again. You see, retreats demand all your time and attention. I wondered, could I slow down enough, breathe deep enough, when I felt stretched thin in so many directions already? That doubt sat quietly inside me until June 2024.World Yoga Day was approaching, and I knew I had to offer something. A colleague suggested we host a retreat at Mangrove Bay. Immediately, my eyes lit up. I had been there before. I knew its quiet forests, the waters winding through the mangroves, the way time slows down there. Something about that familiarity felt safe, like the place itself could hold me while I tried to find my ground again.So I said yes, but i didn’t go alone. You see, along with my mat, my eight-month-old daughter also joined the trip. Honestly, I didn’t know how it would work. Twenty-five people had signed up, and here I was arriving with a little human who had never slept outside home, never felt water beyond her tiny bathtub. But something in me whispered: life won’t wait for perfect conditions, we just have to begin.We reached Mangrove Bay at sunset. I settled the group into their rooms and led them to the river for a sunset flow. As the mats were unrolled, I placed my daughter beside me. At first, I was nervous she might disrupt things. But slowly, I realised she wasn’t outside the retreat at all. She was an essential part of it. Her laughter, her quiet curiosity, softened the space, made it more real, more fun and might I dare say, more cute. It reminded me that yoga isn’t about escaping life. It’s about practising right in the middle of all of life’s madness.That night, we slept in a tent for the first time. The thin canvas let in the sounds of the universe around - the hum of crickets, the rustle of wind, the water moving gently at the edges of the bay. I wondered if she would cry. She didn’t. She slept soundly, as though her tiny body already trusted that nature could hold her even better than I could..The next morning, as the group practised, she played with twigs and leaves, completely absorbed. Watching her, I understood something: yoga doesn’t ask us to split our lives into neat compartments. It asks us to be fully present in the chaos, in the joy, in the unknown.Later, we went kayaking. Paddling through winding waterways, surrounded by roots that rose like sculptures and water that mirrored the sky. It was the quietest I had been in a long time. I was always running from activity to activity, and suddenly in the quiet of the mangroves, I finally learnt to slow down, breathe and lean into the chaos and madness of motherhood and teaching. I didn't have to pretend to be ‘perfect’. I just had to do my best in that moment. In the process, sometimes I might look like a gnarled mangrove root and sometimes like the perfect blue sky.That evening, under the stars, I thought about how often we split ourselves into roles: student, teacher, friend, parent, dreamer. We wonder if we’re enough in any of them. But here, by the bay, those lines dissolved. I didn’t have to choose. I was all of it, at once. Maybe that’s what yoga really means—union, not just of body and breath, but of the many selves we carry within.When we left Mangrove Bay, it didn’t feel like coming back from a trip. It felt like the bay had entered us. With its salt and stillness, its tides and quiet teachings, it left a trace I’ll always carry. My daughter won’t remember it; she was too young. But I will. And one day, I’ll tell her how, before she could even walk, she floated in ancient waters and taught me and maybe all of us the meaning of surrender.

Bay: A Journey of Salt, Sweat, and Stillness

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