Everyone, including yourself, has told you to try yoga. You know the health benefits both mentally and physically will change your life for the better. You pass a highly recommended yoga studio during your daily commute and you wear yoga pants all the time anyway.

So you purchase the best eco-friendly yoga mat ever made, check the schedule next time you walk by the studio, and tell all your friends youve finally decided to go for it!

But when the day comes around, you get nervous. You think, wasnt there something else I was supposed to do today? Anything else? You have visions of yourself getting stuck like a pretzel as everyone elegantly moves from a crow to a headstand with ease. At least, you think thats the progression.

Thoughts of being the only one without perfectly manicured toes cross your mind and you think that perhaps youll spend the next hour getting a mani-pedi instead. You convince yourself, yet again, that yoga can wait another day.

But since the class starts in ten minutes, you decide to sit on a bench in front of the studio and check out the competition going in.

The first person you see is a beautiful twenty-something woman in perfect shape with a yoga mat bag made out of organic bamboo fabric. You know this because it says, Made from Organic Bamboo across the side. You look down at your yoga mat and realize you should have sprung for a nice carrier. This woman looks like she probably showered before she came.

The next person to walk by is an older gentleman wearing sweatpants and carrying a small cup of coffee. That was probably his daughter, you think to yourself, I bet she forgot something. But surprisingly, he doesnt come back out. You watch as more people of all different shapes and sizes, ages and social economic backgrounds, hurry in to class. With the exception of the first girl, none of these people look like the ones youve seen on the cover of the yoga magazines on sale at Whole Foods.

You start second guessing why you were ever second guessing! You think that if yoga is for them, it is for you too. You realize your brain is on overload with worrying about nonsense which is exactly why you were interested in yoga in the first place!

So you decide to go in but stay in the very back. No one will notice me, you think as you unroll your mat and take off your sneakers. Everyone seems to know each other and they are making small talk. A woman who looks like your Aunt Ruth smiles at you. From the front of the class the teacher says, Hello and welcome to our newest yogi all the way in the back! For a moment you want the earth to open and swallow you whole. You wish you had stayed on that bench outside, or better yet, your couch. But then you look up and see a bunch of welcoming, smiling faces.

The lady next to you whispers hello and for lack of anything better to say you tell her you like her yoga mat. She giggles and says, Would you believe I dont even have my own yoga mat? I borrow the mats they have here. You realize youve found your people and this is the closest thing youve ever felt to home.