The Heat That Held Me Together

How Bikram Yoga Carried Me Through Divorce, Homelessness, and LA Fires

I didn’t come to Bikram Yoga looking for transformation.

I came because my ex-wife dragged me to a class in South Pasadena.

At the time, I was still married. I had spent years in the military, followed by intelligence work in Washington, D.C. I had a career. I had a house. On paper, everything worked. Inside, I didn’t know yet how fragile all of it was.

How It Started

That first class was uncomfortable in all the ways Bikram Yoga is supposed to be.

The heat.
The stillness.
The discipline.

I didn’t understand the practice, but I understood one thing immediately: this required me to show up.

Within a few classes, I found consistency.
Within a year, I found a foundation.

I had no idea it would become the one thing in my life that stayed intact when everything else fell apart.

When the Structure Collapsed

Divorce—especially with kids-- doesn’t just end a relationship.

It dismantles the architecture of your life.

I moved around. I lost stability. Eventually, things got bad enough that I spent about three months homeless — not couch surfing, not crashing with friends — actually on the street.

No car.
No permanent place to sleep.

But I still found my way to class. And in the strangest of ways, the hot room became the most stable environment I had.

In intelligence work, you’re trained to operate under uncertainty. In Bikram Yoga, I was training to do the same — but with my body and breath instead of strategy and data.

Sometimes from the YMCA.
Sometimes without knowing where I’d go afterward.

When I stepped into the hot room, the noise stopped.

I wasn’t homeless in that room.
I was a student.

The Practice That Met Me Where I Was

Bikram Yoga didn’t ask me to explain myself.

It didn’t care about my bank account, my divorce, or my circumstances.

It asked for three things only:

Listen.
Move.
Breathe.

That was it.

And for 90 minutes, that was enough.

Losing My Home — Again

Just when life felt steadier, in January 2025, my home in Altadena burned down.

I remember looking out the window and seeing the fire coming.
Not in the distance — close enough to know there wasn’t time to think.

I called out to my daughter and told her to grab what she could. No panic, no debate. Just movement. I wrestled our cat out from under my bed (he did Not want to go), got us out the door, and we left immediately.

There was no time for second-guessing or trying to save things. The decision was already made by the howling winds and the sight of the flames.

Half the street was burned to the ground by the next day. Baby pictures, the high chair I fed both of my daughters in when they were little, my favorite coffee mug…  Everything.  Gone.

This time, though, something was different.

What surprised me wasn’t the loss — it was my response.

I noticed I could stay present. I could breathe through the surge of adrenaline. I could move without freezing. The same way I stay in a posture when everything in me wants to get out.

I noticed I could stay present. I could breathe through panic. I could face loss without collapsing.

What Bikram Yoga Gave Me

Bikram Yoga didn’t fix my life.

It helped me to stay in it.
It gave me a rock to lean on. 

It taught me action without perfection.
Commitment without guarantees.
Presence without control.

If I fall out, I fall out.
I get back in.

That lesson carried me through divorce.
Through homelessness.
Through fire.

Why I Still Practice

I don’t go into the hot room to escape my life.

I go in to meet it — exactly as it is.

Some days my best is strong.
Some days my best is barely there, tired and out of breath.

Both count. Because showing up is the practice.

This story lives not just on the page, but in Jonathan’s voice.
Watch the full video to hear how the practice stayed when everything else fell away.
👉 When Everything Fell Away, the Practice Remained