In that time a few years ago, when everything was a little upside down and the Mr. and I could only go out for an hour at a time, couldn’t go into the pharmacy together, and had to wear masks everywhere—we discovered a yoga teacher named Travis Elliot. Well, I rediscovered him, as I had heard him interviewed on a podcast years before, but he didn’t have an app at the time. In the mire of lockdown, while living in the most locked-down city in the world, amid sourdough starters, Zoom calls, and bodyweight challenges with friends and family, we listened to Elliot and his team guide us through asanas and seated yin poses, finding calm in the chaos and unknown.
The Inner Dimension app provided access to wonderful classes that helped us maintain our yoga practice. We could’ve subscribed to thousands of yoga apps, but something about a quote Elliot mentioned on that podcast stuck in my mind and has been circling around my thoughts again today, and an key element of yoga practice.
“How are you gonna stay calm in the real world, when you can’t even stay calm in a yoga pose?”
— Travis Elliot
Now, this kind of philosophical, sweetly sentimental approach is central to Elliot’s work. While it might invite some cynicism (guilty), I find there’s a deep truth here (guilty again)—a truth integral to the human experience.
Marcus Aurelius wrote, “The obstacle is the way.” Maya Angelou claimed her greatest successes were due to her failures. Brené Brown stated, “Courage over comfort.” Khalil Gibran urged man not to “fear the thorns in the path.” Epictetus wrote, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” And a favourite of mine from Pema Chödrön: “You are the sky, everything else, it’s just the weather.”
I’m thinking about this theme again today, reflecting on a few days spent with our nieces, where various technological hiccups frustrated them, and the wider implications for cyber study (self) and cyber education (others). I’m also thinking about it in terms of martial arts and running, as I plan out my goals and schedule in a new gym for 2025.
My key takeaway: Emotional regulation is key.
A yoga pose, martial arts sparring, a CTF, or a summer coding project are all simulations for the real world—with transferable skills like emotional regulation at the forefront. If you can’t stay calm and curious in a controlled environment, how will you fare in an uncontrolled one? I tried to instil this in my nieces as we troubleshot connectivity issues with their iPads and Bluetooth headphones. Their immediate instinct was to mash the home button, fling their hands in the air, and exclaim, “I just don’t know why it’s doing this!” I mentioned to the Mr. that these questions were like helping less tech-savvy relatives—the frustration is the same, so we must communicate and stay calm in the same way.
What struck me is that studying cybersecurity and aiming to enter the cybersecurity space professionally is much like navigating any other space. One must learn to be okay with discomfort and be okay with playing the long game.
Luckily, life and physical training have prepared me for this. When you hit km 50 in an ultra, it doesn’t feel that different physically from km 15 (provided you’ve done the training). The difference is in your mind—can you stay the course? Can you hustle on the downhills, problem-solve a rock overpass, or step away for fresh perspective when stuck on a coding problem? In the boxing ring, can you breathe and maintain your guard, even when your opponent is trying to take your head off? In a CTF cryptography challenge, do you have the humility to ask your teammate for help or the fortitude to keep going when you’ve tried everything? Each of these scenarios asks the same question: How are you gonna stay calm?
There’s a well-used yoga quote typically attributed to Sri K. Pattabhi Jois: “Do your practice and all is coming.” Trust the process, lean into discomfort, and carry that momentum into the new year. Until then… au revoir! Thank you for being on this journey with me.
Seeline CYBER 
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