the shadows we walk with

Lately, I’ve been circling back to the five kleśas. Avidyā, Asmitā, Rāga, Dveṣa, Abhiniveśa.
Words I’ve studied for years, but somehow they keep unfolding in new ways.

It’s humbling work.
Healing, too.

Writing and reflecting on each one reminded me that these obstacles aren’t signs of failure. They’re simply part of being human. The kleśas are like shadows that follow us, not because we’re lost or doing something wrong, but because we’re walking in the light.

I see them in all the corners of my life—in teaching, in motherhood, in the long, quiet practice of sobriety. In friendship. In the constant learning of how to be at home in myself.

The patterns don’t vanish just because we’ve read the sutras or stepped on the mat. What changes is the way we meet them. The softness we bring when they appear. The willingness to look at what’s there without running away.

Yoga, to me, has never been about perfect alignment or breath control. It’s about seeing clearly. The kleśas are the clouds that drift in and out of that vision. The filters we forget we’re looking through until something helps us remember.

I’ve been asking myself more often lately: what am I not seeing? What story am I holding that keeps me separate from what’s true?

Sometimes the questions alone are enough.

Because this practice—this life, really—isn’t about removing all the shadows. It’s about remembering that they can’t exist without the light.

The kleśas will keep showing up, in one form or another. But the more I meet them with compassion, the less they hold me.

Maybe that’s the quiet gift of it all. We don’t need to be fixed. We just need to keep seeing.