Most conversations about yoga philosophy begin politely, with a Sanskrit term and a respectful nod to the Yoga Sutras. When I sat down with my dear friend and longtime writing partner, Alexandra DeSiato, to talk about our new book, she opened with death. That is very Alexandra, and it turned out to be the perfect door into what Yoga Off the Mat is actually about: how the attention we practice on the mat can change the way we move through everything off of it.
Yoga Off the Mat comes out July 14. It is the fourth book Alexandra and I have written together, and on this week’s episode of Yoga Teacher Confidential we talked through why we wrote it, who it is for, and how two people manage to write one book in a single voice.
Why begin with death?
Alexandra likes to say she always wants to talk about death, and there is real wisdom in why. We live in a culture that looks away from it, that leans on euphemisms and the promise of looking younger. Yoga philosophy takes the opposite approach. It treats death as part of the whole rather than something separate to fear.
The Yoga Sutras have a word for this fear. Abhinivesha, the fear of letting go, is one of the kleshas, the obstacles that cloud the mind. It is the low pull that wakes you at 2 a.m. with worry about what comes next. Alexandra offered the reframe that has stayed with me for years: you do not lie awake grieving the time before you were born, so why spend so much energy fearing where you go after? Making peace with impermanence is not morbid. It frees you to be here now.
A book for your whole life, not just your mat
It would be easy to assume a book about yoga philosophy is dense and hard to crack. This one is not. The chapters are short. The practices take one minute, five minutes, fifteen. You can read a chapter, let it sit, and carry one small idea into your day.
You do not have to teach yoga to use it. You do not even have to practice. Yoga Off the Mat takes the things you do in a yoga class, the breath, the noticing, the practice of coming back when your attention wanders, and applies them to the rest of life: your work, your relationships, the inside of your own head on a hard afternoon.
I told Alexandra about reading The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar during my teacher training in 2003. At the time, even with a fresh PhD in English literature, I could not make it land. I practiced for a decade, came back to it, and suddenly it was clear. Some ideas only open when you are ready for them. We wrote this book to do some of that clearing for you.
What this means if you teach
Even though the book is written for everyone, the ideas enrich your teaching. When you actually live the philosophy, it shows up in your classes on its own, without being forced as a theme. Presence is contagious. Students feel it when you are genuinely with them.
If you want a more direct toolkit for bringing philosophy into class without it feeling bolted on, both volumes of Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses were built for exactly that. Yoga Off the Mat is the companion that helps you live the material first.
How we wrote one book in two voices
People who come to book events are often writers themselves, and they always ask about process. Ours looks like this. We start from a shared outline, the kind I build for every long project, and then we both jump in and fill it. If one of us likes a sentence, it stays. If one of us has something to add, we add it. No precious feelings, no asking permission.
When one of us gets stuck, the other picks up the baton. There is an old piece of writing advice about parking your car on a downhill slope so you can roll it into gear in the morning. Hemingway did a version of this, stopping mid-thought so he always knew where to begin again. Co-writing works the same way. A stuck chapter for me is a fresh start for Alexandra. By the time we are done, neither of us can always tell who wrote what, and that is the point. Two sets of experience, one voice on the page.
Come to the live book talk on July 16
This is your invitation. On July 16, Alexandra and I are hosting a live book talk inside the Zone, our free community. It will be different from a normal class: a reading, the stories behind the book, an open conversation, and your questions. You can RSVP here.
And if this whets your appetite, next week’s episode continues right where this one leaves off. Alexandra reads from Chapter 17, Fear of the Unknown, and I read a chapter of my own. Two readings, one book, the conversation continued.
Yoga Off the Mat is out July 14, and you can preorder it now. However you find your way to it, I hope it meets you where you are.
