Yoga Myths Debunked: The Real Shit They Don’t Tell You About the Mat

By Leslii Stevens ERYT500, YACEP, Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher

“Oh, I can’t do yoga, I’m not spiritual.”

“Isn’t yoga just stretching?”

“I’m not thin enough.”

“I’d go, but I don’t own a mat.”

“It’s for women.”

“It’s not a real workout.”

“You have to be calm to do it.”

“I tried it once in 1998. Didn’t vibe.”

Yoga is for real people with real lives, not filtered perfection.

Myth after myth after myth. And let’s be honest, it’s exhausting. Not because people are stupid (they’re not), but because this $88-billion wellness industry has twisted yoga into something it was never meant to be: A filtered performance designed to sell you leggings and inner peace you can put on layaway.

As someone who’s rebuilt her body after trauma, injury, grief, and literal fucking death, I’m here to smash the myths and hand you the truth. Not the studio-perfect version. Not the celebrity version. The real one.


Let’s get into it.

MYTH #1: You Have to Be Flexible to Do Yoga

FACT: You have to be flexible to do yoga the same way you have to be clean to take a shower.

Flexibility is not the entry ticket, it’s a side effect. A bonus. A maybe.

You know what you do need? A body. And some breath. That’s it.

If you can breathe, you can do yoga.

If you can sit in a chair, you can do yoga.

If you can lie on the floor and cry a little while the sound bowls vibrate through your bones, guess what? You’re doing yoga.

️MYTH #2: Yoga Is Just Stretching

FACT: Yoga is stretching like whiskey is just water.

Stretching doesn't do this. Yoga hits deeper layers, mind, nervous system, and spirit.

Sure, there are poses. Yes, you’ll open up your hips and your hamstrings might whisper some four-letter words to you the next day. But yoga isn’t just about moving your body. It’s about training your nervous system, getting your brain out of panic mode, unlocking emotional shit you didn’t even know you were storing in your left shoulder, and learning to stay when everything in you wants to run.

Yoga is movement medicine.

It’s breathwork, it’s somatic therapy, it’s nervous system regulation, it’s grief processing, and sometimes, yes, it’s lying flat on your back with a lavender eye pillow thinking about tacos.

Stretching? That’s just the warm-up.

MYTH #3: You Have to Be Calm to Do Yoga

FACT: I have ADHD, panic attacks, trauma, grief, and the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel and I teach yoga.

Yoga isn’t about being calm. It’s about having tools for the moments you’re not.

It’s a practice, not a performance. It doesn’t require you to show up perfect, it teaches you how to show up anyway.

You don’t need to be Zen. You need to be human.

MYTH #4: Yoga Is Only for Thin, White, Able-Bodied Women

FACT: That’s a damn lie. A very profitable one, but still a lie.

Yoga doesn’t look one way. It never did.

Yoga has been whitewashed, diet-cultured, colonized, and commodified to look a certain way: all Lululemon and latte foam, light filters and tight abs. That’s not yoga. That’s marketing.

Yoga is ancient. Brown. Rooted in resistance.

It belongs to everyone, not just the ones who look like cover models or fit in size 2 leggings.

My classes are filled with survivors. Fighters. Mothers. Dads. Daughters. Sons. Veterans. People with prosthetics, chronic pain, C-PTSD, grief, rage, and absolutely no interest in handstands. And guess what? They’re yogis.

MYTH #5: Yoga Is About “Clearing Your Mind”

FACT: No it’s not. Your brain is supposed to think, that’s its job.

Meditation isn’t about stopping thoughts. It’s about watching them go by without chasing every single one like a dog after a UPS truck.

You’re not failing at yoga because you’re thinking. You’re humaning correctly.

Also? If your mind is loud, it’s probably because it’s been ignored, overstimulated, or numbed for too damn long. Yoga turns the volume down, not by force, but by curiosity.

MYTH #6: If You’ve Tried Yoga Once, You Know What It Is

FACT: Saying you tried yoga once and didn’t like it is like saying you listened to one album in high school and decided you hate all music.

There are thousands of kinds of yoga. Different teachers. Different lineages. Different rhythms and energies.

If one style didn’t fit? Try another. If one teacher felt off? Trust that. The connection between student and teacher is everything.

There are thousands of styles of yoga. Don’t give up after one bad class.

You wouldn’t keep going to a dentist who made your teeth worse. Don’t keep showing up to classes that make your body feel broken.

MYTH #7: Yoga Is Only for People Who Are Already Healthy

FACT: Yoga is for people with back pain, cancer, trauma, joint replacements, anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief, heartbreak, menopause, and “holy-shit-life-just-punched-me-in-the-gut” seasons.

It’s not the reward for healing. It’s a tool during the healing.

I’ve taught yoga to people recovering from surgery, to domestic violence survivors, to people who’ve attempted suicide, to those who haven’t felt safe in their own skin in decades.

Yoga holds space for the messy middle, not just the tidy after-picture.

FINAL MYTH: Yoga Should Look a Certain Way

FACT: Yoga should feel a certain way. And that feeling is: like coming home to yourself.

Not performing.

Not comparing.

Not twisting yourself into a damn corkscrew for applause.

It’s a pause. A breath. A reckoning. A permission slip. A revolution in a world that keeps telling you to go faster, get smaller, and shut up.

Yoga says: slow down. Take up space. Feel it all.

Then breathe through it.

The Mat Isn’t Sacred Because It’s Quiet.

It’s sacred because it’s yours.

So come as you are. Wobbly, weepy, wide-eyed, whatever.

I’ll meet you there.

Your yoga practice doesn’t need to be pretty. It needs to be yours.