The Child is mother of the Woman

When I was growing up, Paul Rudd was the guy from Clueless who everyone loved for his smile, charm, and, let’s face it, for looking exactly the same for 30 years. Recently, he was asked about being Jewish and, in true Rudd form, he replied, “No, I’m not a practicing Jew. I perfected it.” The perfect line—humble brag meets dad joke. But beneath the humor is something we can all relate to: the idea of striving, practicing, improving.

It ties into this bizarre fact I read recently: every ten years, you essentially regenerate your entire body. Yep, all your cells get replaced. So, in a sense, you’re a whole new person every decade. Kind of like Paul Rudd, who somehow manages to regenerate into the same person every ten years.

When I went to my first yoga class, I thought "chaturanga" was either a type of exotic coffee or a small dog breed. There I was, shaking in plank pose, watching people effortlessly lower themselves with what seemed like the precision of Cirque du Soleil performers. Meanwhile, my arms were spaghetti. This, I thought, is not for me.

Fast forward ten years, and now I can hold a decent chaturanga. Nothing to write home about, but I no longer look like I’m auditioning for a slapstick comedy. It took time, reps, and a lot of wobbling along the way.

This idea of a "practice" is something I've wrestled with, both on and off the yoga mat. It’s a word we throw around casually: a yoga practice, a meditation practice, a legal practice. But what does it mean to have a practice?

We live in a world that celebrates big, splashy achievements. You know, the once-a-year "I'm going to change my entire life" moments. New Year’s resolutions, crash diets, radical career pivots. But the problem with these one-time events is that they usually end up like my first chaturanga attempt—painful, unsustainable, and followed by a trip to the ice cream shop out of sheer defeat.

The real magic happens when you turn those big, shiny goals into something smaller, more consistent. A practice that you show up for daily, even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it.

As much as we change, regenerate, and evolve every ten years, there’s always this part of us, the younger version, that lays the groundwork for who we’re becoming. It’s the part of us that approaches life with curiosity, maybe a little naïveté, but also a willingness to keep trying.

That’s what practice is—a continuous thread that starts early and weaves through our lives, influencing how we approach everything from relationships to careers. We build on that foundation over time, putting in the reps. Even if the version of you ten years ago looks nothing like the version today, that child, that beginner mindset, is still in there somewhere. And it’s that mindset we call on when we commit to practicing something, whether it’s yoga, balance sheets, or figuring out who we’re becoming next.

So, while I may not have had a head for numbers or a body built for yoga ten years ago, the younger me laid the groundwork by just showing up. That’s the point of practice—not to perfect, but to keep evolving, to keep showing up. The Child is mother of the Woman, after all. And she’s still learning, still putting in the reps.