The Monkey Mind: What Yoga Taught Me About a Racing, Anxious Mind

It was midnight in the airport, and no seats were left at my gate, so I sat down on the grey carpet floor in my tie-dye sweatshirt, fighting to keep my eyes open. I had plenty of thoughts racing in my mind. Some were distractions to control my fears, like, "Did I bring everything I needed?" Others were self-judgment towards my choices, like "Am I really flying across the world alone tonight?" But underneath them all was fear, the emotion I didn't want to feel, the one these thoughts fought to keep at bay.

When fear lives in the body

When I traveled as a kid, I'd get sick on planes. My fear turned into stomach pains and nausea. The fear ran so deep that the thoughts took a physical shape within me. I was told it was "all in my head"… but it's funny, isn't it, the power our own mind has to torture us. The brain is the body, neurologically speaking: our central nervous system contains the brain and the spinal cord, which means our thoughts do travel down the spine and send signals to the body. Whether you're thinking of hunger and feel a rumbling in your stomach, or you're feeling fearful and can tie it back to thoughts of distress.

I always grappled with this idea of "needing to control my mind." If only I had fewer thoughts, or more positive ones, I could shift how I felt.

And for some, that may work.

But when I found yoga, it was a doorway to the mind through the body.

Why you can't just "quiet" your mind

A lot of people hear meditation and think, "My mind isn't still. I can't do that. I don't know how to stop my mind from thinking."

And from one anxious gal to another, let me tell you. Me neither.

I've been practicing meditation on and off for years, and never once was my mind "still." It actually may be impossible for some of us to experience that, as it is our mind's literal job to think.

That's like asking your body to stop breathing… you may be able to retain the breath for a few counts or minutes, but try for too long and, well, you're dead.

It's not a bad thing that our mind thinks. It's actually an incredible thing, and it is what makes us human.

What "Yogas chitta vritti nirodha" means

Yogas chitta vritti nirodha is the second of Patanjali's famous yoga sutras, and it often gets defined as "quiet the fluctuations of the mind."

But here's what I keep coming back to. The word yoga itself means to yoke: to join, to unite. And chitta, which we often translate as "mind," is really closer to consciousness. The awareness that we are alive and in congruence with other beings. Bigger than the endless loop of thoughts we're so desperate to "quiet."

So what if Patanjali wasn't asking us to empty ourselves at all? What if the sutra is less about silencing and more about witnessing: noticing the fluctuations the way you'd notice clouds moving across a sky you're lying under? Just… seeing them, and even having a small appreciation for them as proof you are alive.

Maybe the goal was never stillness

Because awareness isn't the same as thinking. Awareness is the thing that watches the thoughts. And if that's true, then maybe the goal was never stillness. Maybe it was always union: with the thoughts, with the fear, with the girl sitting on the airport floor at midnight, one layered over the other like coat after coat of paint.

A few questions people often ask

What does "Yogas chitta vritti nirodha" mean? It's the second of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, often translated as "quieting the fluctuations of the mind." But yoga means to yoke or unite, and chitta is closer to consciousness than to "mind," so the line can be read less as emptying the mind and more as learning to witness its movement.

Do you have to stop thinking to meditate? No. The mind's job is to think, and a perfectly "still" mind isn't realistic or necessary for many of us. Meditation is less about stopping thoughts than about noticing them: becoming the awareness that watches them instead of being swept away.

Can yoga and meditation help with anxiety? For many people, yes. Because the mind and body are so connected, working with the breath and the body can be a doorway into a healthier relationship with anxious thoughts.

If this resonates, I teach yoga and meditation as a way back to presence, through private and online sessions.