This morning I woke up feeling down. That feeling of waking
up and thinking “Oh no, I don’t want to wake up.” This is after 9 hours sleep
and a day of doing whatever I want ahead of me.
I most certainly did not feel like doing my yoga practice. Thankfully however, I did and what felt like
the beginning of a bad day became just a couple of hours of negative thoughts
and emotions. One of the greatest things
I have received from the practice is the ability to let go. As they say “All things pass”, both the good
and the bad. Years ago, I wouldn’t have
had the ability to free myself from a negative cycle of thought. If I woke up
feeling bad, that was it – I was having a bad day. I remember many mornings of feeling very down
and not wanting to get on my mat and certainly not with a bunch of people and
my teacher pushing me to the limit. It was like my insides were on display and
who wants to show their insides to the world?
Well, after all these years I can say “Me! Here are my insides!”
If more people were brave enough to show their insides, the
world would be a better place! I know it
seems easier to ignore your pain and to suppress it in whatever way works for
you but believe me that’s not the answer.
I never knew how to be any other way than I was and when I started
suffering from panic attacks, I honestly had no idea what was causing
them. My life vacillated between anxiety
and depression. I rarely felt really
happy. In coping with panic attacks, I
learnt how to separate myself from my thoughts and therefore control my
thinking rather than it controlling me.
The real work started however when I discovered
meditation. I was lucky enough to have
my meditation teacher all to myself.
These meditations were a revelation for me and changed my life. After two sessions, I started to be bombarded
by all these unpleasant childhood memories.
I honestly had to make a decision to face myself or to stop going to
meditation and go on with a façade of being “grand”. I decided to face myself and that meant
opening up to another person. So during
the third session I cried for the entire hour and this went on until the crying
became a little less. That was the
effect this amazing woman had on me.
When I started to practice ashtanga yoga, I felt very
conflicted. It was hard. The physical exertion felt much like
torture. I often asked myself in the
middle of a class why I was doing this to myself! But, for some reason I couldn’t give it up. When you are taken out of your comfort zone
all sorts of discoveries are made. And
again, I was guided by another incredible woman who has always made me feel
that she can see right through me and she accepts me.
If you have ever experienced sadness beyond words then maybe
you can understand therapy that doesn’t involve words. Meditation and yoga have complimented
conventional therapy for me and yoga has become my daily therapeutic
practice. By showing my vulnerability, I
have become stronger than I could have ever imagined. Yoga has given me a cathartic practice. I work through emotions on the mat that I don’t
need to pinpoint. “I feel sad because of
this, I feel angry because of that…” These
emotions come up, I work them out of my body and I move on. That is something I remember my teacher
saying to me after going deep in a pose and wanting to vomit and cry at the
same time. She said “That’s great, let it
out, now move on.”
After beginning a meditation practice all those years ago, I
started to become aware of all the pain and suffering around me. So many people were unhappy and hiding who
they really were and I had never noticed because I was so busy feeling sorry
for myself. Anyone who has been
depressed will agree that you think everyone is so much better off than
you. Lately, since I’ve been back in
Ireland, I’ve become acutely aware of the number of people who are not dealing
with their shit. I don’t mean to offend
anyone but I’ve been in a lot of countries and this is the land of suppressed
emotions. There are people with so much
crap they haven’t dealt with that they not only hurt themselves, they hurt
other people too. Deal with your
shit! Not dealing with it makes for a
sick society so please don’t hide behind the stock phrase “Yeah, I’m grand”.
Hopefully, when my students come to that first hurdle where emotions
come out of what seems to be nowhere, they’ll feel that they are in a space
where they’re accepted and they choose to face themselves rather than go on
hiding. You’d be amazed by how bendy you
can get when you just let go and how strong you become when you admit your
weakness.
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