What I learned from Yoga

It was anxiety and panic attacks that brought me to yoga.  They had stopped the moment I decided to sell my house, leave my job for nine months of travelling around our beautiful earth.  I was in my early thirties, and whilst most of my friends were getting married and having children.  I was planning another life. This wasn’t quite what I had planned, but in that moment it was the only thing that seemed to make sense to me.  Travelling became the answer that I had been looking for.  I had developed an unhappiness, a restlessness and I seemed to have lost the ability to know what to do in life.  I had had a few years of debilitating panic attacks, my whole day was moving through them whilst trying to maintain a normal work and home life. I had somehow become stuck in a rut that I couldn’t get out of and I needed some space.

Whilst travelling I met many people like me, who had decided to create some space for themselves too and I didn’t feel so alone.  I blogged my way around each country using a travel journal my friend had given me and using a blog site called blogspot that my brother had set up for me.  I valued the space and time to create, but in a short time after I returned home and returned to normal life the panic attacks returned, I was devastated and they were distressing.  I started to attend a yoga class at the gym that I was a member of, the class was 90 minutes, 90 minute classes were few and far between and there was nothing else like this near home.  The class was in a quiet room away from the gym, the room was low lit and it felt like a sanctuary I needed.  That first class was a struggle, I don’t think anyone noticed I was having a panic attack for most of it, but something incredible happened, I realised that if I just focused on my breath, the panic and anxiety would subside, from that moment I was hooked and attending several classes a week.

Unfortunately, those classes folded and I had to find a new ninety minute class, I started to travel to the other side of Manchester to another class that was ninety minutes and it was fabulous. I settled into the class quickly and found myself turning more and more inwards during practice.  I felt I was changing but was unsure how but I did notice that I was creating more, first returning to writing, journaling and then I began making jewellery too. The panic and anxiety was becoming a thing of the past and my world seemed to be opening up more and more.  I craved creativity.  In the moments life became too busy and I wasn’t able to create, I would find myself agitated and I could feel the old familiar anxiety to returning.  Finally it clicked, I needed a creative outlet in my world, without it I struggle.  It has been probably one of the biggest realisations I have had in life, creativity isn’t a nice if I could do, it’s a matter of survival.  I had always been created in my younger years, but somehow through the years it had become lost and buried.  I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had in recent years with others who too, had experienced something similar, where they had been creative in their younger years lost it and then realised that creativity was integral to their own wellbeing too.

My yoga teacher training coincided with a work position that enabled me to bring creativity to the role, and I was at the most happiest during that time. Using yogic breathwork, meditation and reflection seemed to open out my own possibility and potential, I could see things differently and when things felt like they were becoming chaotic or I had to work through something challenging, focusing on my breath seemed to slow everything down for me to see and think more clearly.  I continue to practice this in my everyday life, occasionally I still feel anxious, but I think that is the nature of our fast paced world with an overwhelming amount of information at our finger tips, but it is my breath that calms and slows everything down to support me to move through these times.

Since my yoga training I have trained in pregnancy yoga, trauma informed practices and pregnancy yoga. I am currently undertaking somatic yoga training for healing and recovery. I have learned that over the years our yoga practice changes, it doesn’t always feel the same.  Sometimes we lean towards a more energetic practice and then other times just breathwork and meditation on its own.  Today I find myself leaning towards a more restorative and somatic yoga practice, I am find the softness and stillness comforting as well as a challenge.  Somatic practices have taught me that when I think I am relaxing I am not really, there is tension somewhere in my body, usually in the corners that I hardly pay attention to.  Watching tv or reading a book, my fingers clenched and curled or the back of my jaw clenched. I have learned through yoga to notice myself more, to tune in to our intricacies, to me that is as much a self-care as it is going for a walk, eating nourishing foods or taking time out, its just in this busy modern world those intricacies are over ridden by being to busy to notice. By noticing we can unclench the fingers, soften the jaw and live from a gentler place.