A Grounded Way of Being:
Thoughts from Amir
It is curious that something so ordinary that we do for hours each day can feel so unnatural. We sit to work, drive, eat, and rest, but research now tells us that this habitual state carries consequences: back pain, tight hips, sluggish circulation, even shortened life expectancy. No wonder some call sitting “the new smoking.”
But it isn't sitting itself that harms us. The trouble lies in how we do it. By collapsing into chairs, rounding through the spine, and tucking the pelvis under, we slowly teach the body patterns of strain. I recall a student who could not understand why her lower back ached by mid-afternoon, blaming it on her age or her mattress. But a closer look revealed a simpler and much more ordinary cause: hours of slumping in front of a screen, her pelvis rolled under, her breath shallow. And the remedy is exceedingly accessible.
From a yogic perspective, sitting can be more than just waiting or working. It can become a posture of attention, a shape that allows the breath to flow and the mind to settle, and a somatic practice and postural therapy that is alive, fluid, and balanced. Yoga teaches us that the spine is meant to rise like a mountain, steady and expansive, while the pelvis roots like the earth beneath it. With this in mind, sitting becomes a grounded way of being instead of a slow collapse into gravity.
This is the exploration we'll take together in my upcoming therapeutic workshop on The Art of sitting as we turn from a quiet erosion of posture toward a restorative and enlivening practice of the seat. By weaving together yoga, somatic awareness, and Egoscue’s postural insights, we'll rediscover both the mechanics and the mindfulness of how we take our seat – in a chair, on the floor, and everywhere in between.