One of the most transformational tools on my healing journey is yoga and at first I hated every minute of it.
The first time I ever tried yoga I was 18. In the midst of an eating disorder and alcoholism that I didn’t even know I was struggling with. I stood up, did a pose, sat back down and said “nope”. I thought it was slow and boring and not for me. (To this day I continue to believe that “boredom” is a loaded word that often has a deeper meaning.. often connected to actually having to be with oneself and the feelings that brings up for someone)
Fast forward over ten years, I tried yoga again. I have since recovered from both the eating disorder and alcoholism and needless to say a whole lot had happened in between my yoga experiences.
During my second yoga experience, I thought to myself, “what the hell is this kind of hellish thing that I signed up for. It’s like 90 something degrees in here. I can barely breathe and certainly can’t do what everybody else is doing. Did I really sign up for this? How did this happen?”
Looking back, I am able to laugh at how uncomfortable it was to be invited to practice something completely new, something that I was not “good” at in a room full of regular practitioners who gracefully bent their bodies in ways I couldn’t fathom.
It’s been about 5 years and I haven’t stopped practicing since. I fell in love.
Yoga taught me how to be in my body. It taught me how to tolerate noticing, and leaning into the sensations, to be curious about what was arising. It taught me how to feel safe feeling all of these sensations. It taught me how to release the tension through being present with them, breathing into it, and crying on the mat if thats what was called for.
Yoga is a safe space for me to observe my own mind. I was able to notice when I was comparing myself to others and to redirect myself to my own experience, to be strongly rooted and grounded in Self while in the company of others.
It taught me how to notice when my own mind whispered to me “leave. You should leave early” and I was able to learn how to stay when I wanted to run (or walk out quietly when no one was looking, in the case of yoga). It taught me how to leave when leaving is what I needed. Like when I was going through a break up and my intuition whispered “you need connection right now. You need to go be with your friends”. And so I followed that, without shame and with joy that I can leave when I need to leave and stay when I need to stay.
It taught me how to honor my needs and wants in regards to poses without worrying about what other people think or what they can do. It taught me to tune in to myself and my body and honor my own needs each time I practiced. Sometimes I felt like a graceful butterly who could “nail every pose” and sometimes I’d fall over my own two feet. I practiced compassionately and non-judgmentally meeting myself where I was in each moment and remembering the impermanence of it all, how our emotions rise and fall like the waves and some days may feel more difficult than others. That’s okay. I am okay, even on the days when I can’t seem to balance on even both feet.
Yoga is proof of how consistency, showing up and making small changes and efforts each day is truly life changing. Especially when it comes to healing trauma and addiction, whether that be love addiction, sex addiction, work addiction, addiction to chaos or eating disorders/disordered eating.
What has been the most transformational tool on your healing journey?