This is why I call what I do ‘Integrated Embodiment.’ I feel it is so important to integrate the myriad of facets of ourselves into One shining jewel, something that we all do in our own unique ways. We truly are all in this together and need authentic relationships to see oureselves through – to allow ourselves to be seen. Meditation practice is a wonderful resource as part of a balanced life style in which our human qualities are allowed and integrated. Often, meditation and yoga can be used as tools to escape being human, can create rigidity and isolate us from each other. This can happen in such subtle ways.

I used to do this myself. I now use these practices as tools to turn towards myself more fully as well as relationships, to face life with less fear, allowing others to see my areas of vulnerability. This has allowed me to grow in ways that “yoga”, by itself, could never quite touch. I see yoga, in the vaster sense of the word, as a fully holistic way of being that is certainly not confined to the mat (in fact I don’t even believe you have to ever practice ‘asana’ to understand yoga).

There are many ways to approach this way of being and it doesn’t even need to be called yoga. The point is an ongoing commitment to your own unfolding, to presence and staying with what is happening, allowing our vulnerability and humanness to shine through and to integrate it in a way that allows us to touch the source… in this way, all things become part of it – the ‘practice’, relationships, daily tasks … life itself. Nothing is not part of this unfolding and, again, we are all in it together and we are all such wonderful mirrors for each other – even in the challenging times, for how else will we see those parts of ourselves we want to hide or deny, how else will we learn to hold and love them fully? 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-korda/meditation-can-hold-feeli_b_7840596.html