My Yoga Journey

When I was young, my mom used to play tapes of Rodney Yee out on a beach with a glorious view, just at sunset with gentle waves crashing onto shore. He performed angular poses effortlessly in a fluid manner, and the videos finished with him laying in the sand in such stillness that made me wonder, "What is this person doing? He gets paid for this?"

I immediately wanted to be part of that serenity and calmness. I would follow along with him but felt like a fraud in a way. I didn't just want to do the poses, I wanted to understand them. He carried with him wisdom that I had never seen in a person before, not even priests during church service. I knew there was more to excavate. But I was like... 6 and it wasn't something I made time for every day because there were more important things like coloring and playing make believe.

Here and there, my mom would get a yoga ball, and then yoga books with poses I would try to pretzel myself into, but it wasn't until high school until I really started practicing regularly. My high school was quite progressive, actually. The fact that they even offer yoga as an alternative to P.E. or another sport is evident of that. I hated P.E.. Maybe it's because I was out of touch with my body or already had limiting beliefs of what my body could do and how I could train it. I valued art and expression more than physical strength at that time as if you could only be one or the other. I remember thinking it just wasn't for me and I could never have an athletic body. Because of that, yoga was perfect for me. It was softer on your body than push ups or crunches, and I could barely do either. I also knew there was a more spiritual aspect that I hadn't tapped into yet.

I fell in love with it right away. I also don't think it's an overstatement to say I NEEDED it in high school. I was a mess back then, so insecure, unconfident, and anxious. Yoga, quite frankly, was the only break I had from my emotions. It was scheduled towards the end of the school day for me, and after four classes and boyfriend drama at lunch, that final shavasana would save me and have me floating out of the room, back to the lockers, and all the way home. That was when I was the calmest... There was still something missing though.

Because it was a public high school class, it didn't really teach us about the connection of body, mind and breath or the philosophical aspect of Buddhist teachings (which I believe is just not allowed in public school since you're not supposed to single out any religion). Also, the teacher (although she had her teacher training) didn't go into how you can focus and bring awareness to certain parts of your body to perform the poses with more strength and ease.

Since it was high school and we've already established how insecure I was, I compared my flexibility and strength to other people who could hit the poses perfectly while my body just couldn't do it. Although I loved yoga overall, I still had this sense that it wasn't fully for me or my body and because of that, I simply did the bare minimum. The teacher certainly didn't make it clear that you need to tailor yoga to yourself and that it takes lots of practice and attention to yourself that helps you embrace the pose to it's fullness over time.

After high school, I fell out of practice. I would pick it up randomly with videos online (shout out to Adriene Mischler for being the internet's number one yoga queen!) but then would become unmotivated and drop it again. I thought maybe I needed to have a structured schedule at a yoga studio in order to stick with it, but what college student has the money for that?

Then my sister started going to CorePower yoga across from her apartment. She invited me and I went with her. The teacher complimented me for being able to keep up with the class and I felt inspired. I went back with my sister a couple times more until I found out I was pregnant, during which I actually became one of the studio's custodians for some extra money on the side. Even though I wasn't actually going to yoga classes, being at the studio, listening to the serene yoga tracks, smelling the essential oils and meeting down to earth people just made me feel, to some degree, like I belonged. Also, I had become obsessed with the scent of bleach at the time and loved embalming myself in it during my duties. Yes, that was my craving. Not pickles or ice cream... or pickles with ice cream. Just bleach.

When I had my kid, I no longer had any desire or thought to take care of my body. My son was my only priority and I completely lost my identity and connection with myself (but that's for another post). It wasn't until I separated from my husband and moved out on my own when I really started to rebuild myself again. The first thing that made me think about getting back into yoga again was that I suddenly hard hard wood floors. When I had tried to practice yoga at home, my mat would sink into the carpet and was harder on my wrists (I have very fragile wrists - one that I even fractured when I was in middle school). I still didn't have a lot of money because it was the first time I was financially independent. I was worried about things not working out due to talks of an upcoming recession, but I did bring myself to invest into a yoga mat that was cute and made me want to practice.

Then, I circled back to Yoga with Adriene: a wonderful YouTube channel with free yoga practices that highlighted what I had been missing in previous yoga experiences; the idea that yoga IS for everyone with a core concept of finding what works for you. This includes staying mindful of your body: what feels tight? what hurts? what feels good? Those questions you ask yourself helps point to what areas of the body you should work on for a release, where you might be pushing yourself too hard, and what you're doing right. It turned out not to be about the shape of the poses, but how I made the pose work for me. I genuinely owe so much of what I know to Adriene, and although I don't know her personally, I do consider her a caring friend who has my back. Once I did have a bit more in my pocket, I even joined her online membership Find What Feels Good for more exclusive content and community, mainly because I wanted to support her and everything she does for people. I really believe in her mission, and after a year of doing yoga religiously, it was a gift to myself that I still use today.

I started noticing BIG changes when I stuck with my yoga practice. More and more, I was able to do each pose without a less effort. I was more flexible, I cultivated more strength, and I had the knowledge to address areas of discomfort I had battle with for years (notably my tight and sore hips). There's a difference between pain and discomfort that needs to be tended to. I learned how to lean and breathe into that discomfort, coming out of the poses and feeling much looser with less pain! I found the ways my back and neck needed to be readjusted and cracked (which by the way, I don't have major problems with. Please go to a chiropractor if you do have serious problem areas so that you do not hurt yourself at home).

Now, I had the knowledge of what my body needed, which poses could address it, and how to tweak my body in order to come into the full expression of the pose that worked for me. And yes, I did start to lose weight. Seeing how my self-discipline translated into results and the reward of simply feeling good was transformative on so many levels. It helped me understand that showing up for myself and doing things little by little could work in other personal projects I had. While I was physically stronger, I was mentally stronger as well.

I had a new outlook on life, new values, mindfulness and techniques to calm me through the hard times, mainly with meditation, breath-work and staying present. Leaning into discomfort, as mentioned before, could go beyond physical limits and how I started to address challenges and anxieties in life. Not only that, but the kindness, care and respect I put into myself made me a better person because I started treating people with the same amount of consideration.

This did wonders for my spirituality because for the first time in a long time, I felt connection to others with meaning and purpose - something that the Christianity I was raised with was never able to do because I saw how it divided an excluded most groups of a wide range of backgrounds. But with yoga, it opened my eyes to the kind of energy we exude, how we can acknowledge and alter it if we're in a funk, and how energy comes together between two people through their interactions, both positive and negative. We're all trying to find where we belong - sometimes in the wrong way of becoming something we're not. But yoga is all about honing who you are and how you feel and tailoring it in a way that's unique to yourself. I certainly felt like I suddenly belonged.

I'm currently at a crossroads in my life where I'm realizing that while I'm good at my corporate job, it's not meaningful work for me. I'm flirting with the idea of becoming a yoga instructor - and it's not for the money. It's because I want to connect with people to help them in the ways yoga has helped me, such as realizing the things I need in life rather than ignoring myself. After moving by myself to a large city, I found that even though I had my partner, I didn't have a community and felt quite isolated. I found a yoga studio called One Down Dog that has multiple locations in the Los Angeles area that has become such a refuge for me. While my home practice is still how I primarily practice yoga, this studio has so many wonderful teachers that I look up to and learn from. I joined a yoga talk series that they host and immediately felt so connected to everyone who joined. They were so open and willing to talk about their experiences. It wasn't just about yoga either, but about mindfulness, shame, and emotions that kind of became a mini-group therapy session but with meditation techniques. After a hard week, I always felt better after our class. It was beautiful and just made me want to lead people in the same way.

I have a long way to go and many things to learn, but after seeing just how dedicated I have been with this, I don't see any reason to stop now. Yoga is a life practice and it's teachings are an endless well of knowledge. There's no pressure of deadlines or numbers. That's not to say it's easy work either, it's not. In fact, some of the most difficult work is to take care and maintain your wellness, but it's a journey that has treated me well and only continues to bless me with an understanding of what it means to be alive.

Take care,

Tedders

(Owner/Contributor)