When I injured my hip flexor earlier this year, for a little more than a month I lost the ability to relieve stress the best way I know how – by pounding it out over three to six miles of winding, hilly, country back roads near my home. My aunt and uncle suggested I try a local yoga class focused on building core muscles or relieving stress, but I wasn’t sure I wanted my first try to be in a roomful of people. I was a gymnast in high school, but what if I’m not that flexible anymore?

I stumbled upon a DVD, “Hemalaya Behl’s Yoga for Urban Living” at St. Vincent de Paul, and decided to spend $3.88 for a private class at home. It sat in my room for a few months until I learned a little about this foreign form of stress relief that is supposed to be good for anybody, with beginner, intermediate and advanced levels of asanas or poses that can help us become one with our body, mind and soul. To me, it sounded like a mini-retreat on a mat and exactly what I needed. If I reach inner peace through yoga, which is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, “to join, to yoke,” knowing that everything comes from God, yoga might just find a place in my hectic schedule.

Religion, like money and politics, is a topic that some believe should never be discussed in mixed company. People’s feelings [...]