Spiraling Out of Darkness

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately & I am nothing short of amazed at where I am now. It’s so interesting to me that I have been into nutrition, fitness, and yoga for most of my adult life. It hasn’t always been healthy, but these interests have always been in my life.

(above: a delicious lunch I had recently)

When I was a teen and throughout my young adult life, I struggled with an eating disorder and later around age 30, I added a daily wine habit to that. It’s interesting that I used to count the calories in grapes, but ignored the calories in the bottle of wine I consumed on a regular basis back then. Obviously my restriction had more to do with self-destruction than anything else.

(above 2014, when I was obsessed with doing crow pose in weird places)

Later, I got into a fitness MLM and while I enjoyed the community, it ultimately exacerbated my disordered eating, leading to digestive issues, and overwork of certain muscles in my body from some of the programs I was following.

Around that same time, yoga came back into my life in a big way. As I mentioned in a previous post, I started practicing in 2001 with a book and my hardwood floor. I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved it and found a connection with it that I can’t explain. Over the years I’d do short practices here and there, but in 2015, it came back to me in a major way and I began practicing at least once a week.

From there, the disordered eating eventually fell away. Over-exercising seemed a waste of time.

I found more of myself on the mat. The mindfulness it provided helped me notice even more how I felt after certain foods, how wine made me feel, how certain activities and situations made me feel, and this led me to be curious about Ayurveda, a word that kept popping up here and there in my life: through social media and my yoga books.

Over the next several years, that bottle of wine became 1/2, then a glass or two every other day, and then I noticed there were many days when could take it or leave it. Still, I have to be careful. Long-term habits are hard to break and I’d say I was in a grey area between a habit and addiction.

Since I began my YTT200 four years ago, I have given more intentional focus to Yoga and Ayurveda in my life. Slowly and with kindness, I have made adjustments in how and what I eat, how I take care of myself, where my energy goes, how I start and end my day, and even how I practice yoga itself.

I stopped buying into the notion of “no pain no gain,” and invited in the idea of self-love to my practice and to my life. I purposely left out some of the “impressive” poses that I was trying to hard to “land” and opted for poses that invited me to settle in. As a Vata-dominant constitution, this was a challenge!

I feel more balanced and aligned than I have in a very long time. I still have hang ups (not asking for help being one, worrying too much what others think of me being another), but I have much more peace with where I am in my life, how I’m living my life, and the future that I see before me. It has been an on-going progressive change over many years and I am grateful for the things I have learned.

Yoga has been life-changing for me. I am grateful that it came into my life so many years ago and so thankful that it kept knocking at the door.

It’s so wild how all of this has always been with me in some form or fashion, and now to arrive at this beautiful, peaceful place with food and yoga. I can sit down to eat anything and feel good. That’s such a big deal for me! I can move my body out of love for it, rather than thinking I need to lose this or that, or tighten this or that. That’s a huge deal for me!

I feel I have followed a spiral out of darkness and self-destruction, to a place of compassion and healing and I’m in awe of it.

Perhaps this will resonate with someone out there. It felt important to share, because I’m proof that the journey isn’t linear. You may feel like you’re spiraling out of control, but everything we go through is part of our journey and you very well may be spiraling UP to a place of peace and healing as well.

Like I tell my students: baby steps, add in a little more goodness to each day, any time spent quit (with a habit) is time well spent, rest when you need to, every day is a fresh start to show gratitude and self-love.

Never give up.

Keep going.

Breathe, let go, and trust.

Xx