if you want to force it, I won’t stop you…

September 10th, 2026

Yesterday I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.

I think I sat at my computer for five hours. By the time I was done, my shoulders were tingling and my back was hurting. I was trying to turn this blog post (hi, yes, this one!) into my poetry post for the month and went to bed after midnight feeling frustrated and like I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do for the day because I couldn’t make it work.‍ ‍

(For the record, I promise you, I am never going to put my writing out there for the world to see, just because I feel like I have to meet a deadline. I will always be sure that my published product is exactly as it should be so our eyes, ears, mouths, hands, and our hearts, can truly feel & sense it all.— minus punctuation & grammar, because I’m the worst at that)

When I woke up this morning the funk that had such a hold on me yesterday was gone. Vanished. (Released, more like it.) And as I drove to work I could FEEL the post you are reading now inside of me. Funny enough, as I was literally driving to work I started rambling to my Siri, creating a note that IS this post 😂.

We try so hard to make things fit.

As a yoga teacher, I find myself trying to make every pose, cue, breath count, and quote fit into each class. As a partner in a relationship I find that I try to fit the disagreement and solution into the same hour long conversation, when in reality, sometimes we need a few hours, or even a day, of space to come to a real solution. As a person living a life, I find myself trying to make everything fit into my days; the good moods, the bad moods, the chores, the rest, the fun, the workout, the sex, the quiet time. All of it and everything in between.

—But why do we do that? Why do we all (okay maybe not all, but let’s be honest, MOST) feel that we have to fit so many things into such small containers? Is it just to say that we’ve done it? Just to feel worthy? To feel proud? Just to feel like we’ve accomplished something?

Something I’ve learned about Yoga (or maybe something I’ve learned about life), is that it’s really gonna tell you if you’re trying to force something instead of making space. It pushes you into the discomfort zone and it brings you face-to-face with shit that’s uncomfortable. It makes you sit there and look at it and laugh at it and cry at it and yell at it, and rage at it and smile at it. And then it leaves it up to you to decide where your edge is—to decide what fits or what can be let go. It stops you, gently saying - “Not yet, if you want to force it, I won’t stop you. But babe, truly — not yet.”

And sometimes I feel like that when I’m teaching.‍ ‍

Fun story - I had this beautiful flow set up last week for my Yinyasana and Vinyasa yoga classes where we do a round of Sun Salutation A, a second round with modification, then a round of Sun Salutation B, another again adding a modification, followed by three flows that gently build on each other taking you to a repeated peak pose. SO, we are getting through class, and the music is music-ing and the flow is flowing and we are on barely Flow 2, and I look at the clock and OMG why is it 1012, there is no WAY we can get 4 more flows in, plus balance, plus closing poses, plus deep yin stretches plus supine twists and leave room for at least a 3 minute savasana. (For those of you in my — or any— yoga class, THIS is the teacher brain that you don’t hear cause we be looking all zen and shit. Internally it’s just straight chaos most of the time.) AND IN THAT MOMENT I realize that it doesn’t fit, and I have no choice but to be okay with letting something go.‍ ‍

So, let’s do the thing where we relate this to our lives…

Instead of forcing a pose to fit into a class, or forcing a 10th thing onto the To-Do-List for the day, or forcing a solution when there really isn’t a good one (or forcing a poem to be done when it isn’t ready) - can we stop? Can we create some space and realize that there is always another day, or another way if we give it a chance to breathe? OR EVEN MORE — Can we be okay with the fact that maybe we need to let it go? Just because we let something go doesn’t mean we don’t come back to it, it just means that at this moment it doesn’t do us any good to keep obsessing. (i.e., I fully plan to post that poem when it’s ready. It’s just not there yet, and it will make me crazy if I try to force it.)

(& also— because I’m not an out of touch lunatic, I know that sometimes there actually isn’t another day— like when it’s the day of Thanksgiving and you have to get every single thing done because dinner is going to be on the table in 4 hours and nothing is prepped! YES, I totally get that. But that’s really not the thing that I’m talking about...)

I fully believe that we can all power through when we have to. But I guess the question I’m asking is —wouldn’t it be better if we could take an honest look at ourselves; our capacity, our intent, and the next time we are in an obsessed moment, can we reevaluate and decide if what we are stuck on fits? and if not, Can we gently let go? Or put it in a Save-for-Later Pile to go through the next time we have the space?


That’s not exactly all — this topic is so broad. Balance. Expectation. Fitting versus Forcing.
But - that’s where my brain is at today. Thank you for listening 🤍
Talk soon!

Love,
Rachel Hope

ps. ….I hope this helped you breathe a little easier….

Enjoy: Labor Day farm Shenanigans with the Hubs & In-Laws, CHEESECAKE, a normal-rachel-selfie, Baby jalapeños in the garden, THE BABY with HIS BABY 🤍.