Coming Out to My Yoga Teacher… as a Closeted Smoker

I used to be a regular cigarette smoker. It started in college and continued throughout my 20s and into my 30s. Even now, I’ll occasionally find myself reaching for a nicotine fix here and there. I remember when I first started practicing yoga in my 20s, I was smoking regularly at the same time. And I remember feeling this immense sense of shame around that contradiction — on one hand, I was smoking cigarettes; on the other, I was practicing yoga and trying to deepen my breath.

There was a moment, after taking a class with my yoga teacher, when I decided to tell him. I came out to him as a smoker. I remember bracing myself for judgment — the same judgment I was already placing on myself. It felt like I was holding up a mirror, almost hoping he would confirm what I believed to be true: that this part of me was something to be criticized. But that judgment never came.

I don’t remember exactly what he said in response, but I do remember what didn’t happen. There was no criticism. No disappointment. No shift in how he saw me. Just… acceptance. There was a kind of nonchalance in his reaction that caught me off guard. I remember having this internal moment of, “wow… you really blew that out of proportion.” All of the stories I had created in my head — about how I would be judged, how I would be seen — simply weren’t real. And in that moment, something shifted. That genuine acceptance pulled me out of my head and back into the present. It created just enough space for me to see how harshly I had been relating to myself.

And then I realized — we all carry contradictions. Maybe contradictions aren’t something to be ashamed of, but instead a way we relate to one another in being human. There is room for them. Where we might feel attached to being one specific way — disciplined, healthy, put together — the contradiction adds depth. It gives us permission. It gives us freedom to explore the other end of the spectrum. To not keep ourselves confined in a box. To practice yoga… and then turn around and smoke a cigarette outside of a rave at 4am.

I’ll never forget how that interaction changed the way I interact with myself. It made me realize that maybe other people aren’t judging me the way I judge myself. We spend so much time wrapped up in our own inner worlds — building stories, assigning meaning, magnifying our perceived flaws. Things that feel big, overwhelming even, in our own minds often aren’t nearly as significant to others. And more often than not… they’re not nearly as significant as we make them out to be.

Maybe the practice isn’t about resolving the contradiction… but learning how to hold it.