The Unexpected Journey of Embracing Chaos: My Goat Yoga Experience

Picture this: A cozy studio filled with adorable, little baby goats. The room is full of people flowing gracefully through downward dogs and other beautiful yoga poses. The goats, playful and curious, climb onto your back, adding a touch of whimsical charm to the session. This picturesque scenario was exactly what I had painted in my mind when I first signed up for goat yoga.

But let's shatter that illusion right now: goat yoga is not what you imagine it to be. It is chaos.

Picture instead, a scene where you're trying to maintain your balance on an uneven grass field. The goats, cute as they may be, have no understanding of personal space. They invade your tranquility at the most inconvenient times. Like when you are deep in shavasana and suddenly, you find a goat standing over your head. Meanwhile, you're half worried if a goat's gonna pee or poop on your mat, near you or, God forbid, on you!

This isn't an advertisement for or against goat yoga, rather it is about my personal experience. In each experience, I try to draw out a blessing, a lesson, or a takeaway. In this instance, amidst all the chaos and the futile attempts to go through the instructed yoga poses, I had a realization: I had to make a choice. I couldn't have the picture-perfect moment I had planned in my head about what I thought goat yoga should be.

I had to decide whether it was going to be about the goats or about the yoga, because realistically, at least for me, I couldn't have both. I chose goats. This wasn't about me perfecting the pose or going through the transitions of all the poses seamlessly.

I found myself in the midst of nature, surrounded by a habitat that was not my own. It wasn't about me controlling this environment, but rather existing within it. It was about discovering how I fit in, rather than how this environment fit into my life or schedule.

As I lay there, petting a giant bunny, I realized that this was the tranquility I was seeking. I was blessed to be in that moment, amidst the chaos. Just like in life, we choose our state of mind and how we perceive or accept the environment we're in. We have choices - either remove ourselves from that environment, improve that environment, or make the best of that environment.

Throughout this journey, I discovered that I tend to gravitate towards things I can control, things that align with my expectations or lead to an expected result. There is a sense of safety and familiarity in such situations. However, when you venture into an experience such as goat yoga, you go in expecting certain things. Yet, the reality is, all of those things on your list are expectations you made up.

Changing your perspective can make all the difference. I went in wanting to do yoga with goats. I wanted to experience the practice of yoga while being in the company of goats simultaneously. But the reality? I paid for the experience - not the yoga, not the goats, but the raw, unfiltered, chaotic yet beautiful experience.

And in the end, that was exactly what I got.