I realized as I sat down to write you all, that I don’t believe I have shared the genesis of my own personal yoga practice and how, in many ways, yoga saved my life. I think this is true for many of us on some level. Our practice often really is that tried and true metaphor of the oxygen mask, filling our own cup, so we have something to offer others. Many days it is the respite from an overly scheduled life, a chance to slow down, breathe, sweat and work out the primal need to quiet the mind. We build incredible strength, endurance, flexibility through a consistent practice. A physical yoga practice is a beautiful ritual where we place ourselves on our mats knowing we are ready to do the work, to show up for ourselves.
The physical practice for me is a window into how I do everything. Am I willing to pay attention to the smallest details? Am I powering through guns blazing or willing to find the sweet balance of strength and grace, power and ease, presence with each breath?
You have probably heard me say in class that after the flow, after the heat and fire of a strong practice, it is imperative to be still in those final postures, especially savasana. For me, that is the time when I listen. A long time ago, one of my teachers, upon taking us out of savasana and into a short meditation, cued, “Is there something I need to hear?” I ask myself that most days, and often times it is in those moments when I hear something I need to hear, or many times, something I have been avoiding by moving too quickly through my own life.
I was always an athlete, a runner mostly, but dabbled very lightly in yoga. But nearly twenty-three years ago, at twenty-six years old, I hit a major pothole. No, not a pothole. More like a giant life threatening crevasse where I either got my shit together or died. It really was that simple.
I had to get sober.
And I did.
That very short “And I did” sentence is a novel in and of itself, as the process of getting and staying sober is rich and painful and courageous and ugly and complicated. Perhaps a story for another day, but yoga and my recovery go hand in hand.
In the beginning of my recovery I knew I needed to get back into my body. I had been neglecting it, punishing it, taking it for granted, assuming it (and I) were invincible. I needed to love myself back to health and yoga led me there. So every day I went to meetings and I went to yoga. Every single day. Pretty much without fail. No excuses.
Meaningful recovery demands you live a life of rigorous honesty, and so despite that the overachiever in me considered bypassing introductory level classes and bulldozing right into the fast pace of strong vinyasa flow, the newly sober me knew that I had to become teachable, humble. I had to learn humility. I had to be willing to slow down. I had always been a good student. So good student I became once again, making a commitment to myself to stay in lower level classes for a full year. And I did. There I found the teachings of beautiful women like Jasmine Lieb, Julie Kleinman, Seane Corn, Sara Ivanhoe and more.
In those classes I learned how to breathe consciously for the first time. I discovered how moving on a yoga mat was a moving meditation, a forgiving prayer to myself for all the pain I had suffered and caused.
A breathing dance of redemption.
My yoga practice became a living amends, a one-breath-at-a-time prayer that affirmed I was committing to a life of beauty, honesty and presence.
One breath at a time. One day at a time. For nearly twenty-three years.
I love you. Namaste.