#LettersToNonPresentMe
To 15 y.o. me,
This darkness you feel will always follow you. [It’s normal; nothing is wrong with you.] You’ll carry it with you. Sometimes the weight will be unnoticeable. Sometimes, unbearable. But you’ll push through. You’ll use tools to help you accept every emotion, even the “scary” ones. You’ll harness the lessons you learn to guide others to healing. There’s no shame in needing help or feeling lost. You have all the answers within you.
Love,
32 y.o. me
How are you nourishing your body during this time? I’m finding a balance between love-filled, delicious, rainbow-colored, home-cooked meals and chemical-laden, delicious, beige-colored, processed, comfort foods . . .
Did you know that up to 90% of our serotonin is created in the gut? You know - serotonin - “the happy chemical”? It’s mostly created in the gut! There’s evidence that our diets can even affect our moods. Crazy, huh?
So while it may be tempting to sit around all day eating Oreo’s, it may be a good idea to limit the processed foods, sugar, and booze while your nervous system is already in overdrive. But allow yourself to find comfort and solace in some good old-fashioned comfort foods too (hello, Easy Mac!).
Hope y’all are staying safe, sane, and satiated!
<< R I S E >>
I created this mantra / acronym for when I’m feeling anxious and need to come back to the present moment. My hope is that this may help you too.
<< R I S E >>
RECENTER: notice the tension build in your body (usually jaw/ neck); label the emotion you’re experiencing; or name 5 things in the room with you.
INHALE: take 5 slow deep breaths in through the nose and out of the mouth.
SAFE: repeat “I am safe and loved.”
EARTH: find a way to ground down into the earth— often, physically by placing bare feet in the grass; sometimes less literally by dancing, practicing yoga, laughing via FaceTime with a friend.
<< R I S E >>
I hope you find your thing. The thing that gets you out of bed each morning. The thing that brings joy into your heart. The thing that reminds you that you are not alone. The thing that just FEELS right. The thing that makes you feel beautiful and invincible. The thing that makes your skin tingle. The thing that makes you forget about your anxiety or depression or whatever shit - just for a little while. The thing that grounds and centers you - bringing you back home to yourself. The thing that brings you so deep into the present moment that you have no choice but to be grateful.
Yoga is my main thing. But there isn’t just one. My “thing” is morning walks with Beaux; dancing to share my story; watching musicians perform; the community I’ve found within yoga; spending time out in nature; finding friends who love me for me; seeing someone SO confident in their element that it’s contagious.
I hope you find your thing. And if you haven’t, or you have no idea where to start, that’s where I come in. To guide you one step closer to discovering the thing(s) that light you up.
This is hard to share but now feels like the right time.
September marks ten years of experiencing chronic pain. One decade of almost-daily widespread pain. No diagnosis, no cure, no treatment. In 2009, the pain started as an intense “injury” in my neck with no real cause. I chalked it up to starting grad school and a new job. Over the years, the pain would spread to my jaw and shoulder. Later my low back, opposite foot, then in 2016, my hip and entire leg. I’ve tried pain pills, physical therapy, numbing injections, chiropractic work, massages, Reiki, and everything in between. Over time, it became my new normal. To wake up in pain. To spend the entire day in some degree of pain. To fall asleep in pain. It was there constantly. Day and night, stressful times or otherwise. Nothing helped, but nothing made it tremendously worse. So I carried on.
Chronic pain is invisible and to the outside world, I look young, healthy, and happy. I didn’t talk about it for a very long time because I didn’t know how to really. I didn’t want people to judge me or treat me differently either. I still can’t quite put into words what it’s like to live being so consumed by pain. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. All consuming.
My pain had never limited me, or so I thought, until my yoga teacher training in 2016. I cried every weekend (for 10 weeks); and for the first time in my life, I allowed myself to feel. Sad, overwhelmed, inadequate, like a failure. My pain held me back from doing things all the other students could. It was at this time that I realized how much of my life had been dictated by my pain. The kind of mood I’d be in, how I’d treat others, how active I could be, how kind I was to myself. I couldn’t sit still or stand for long periods of time. Hiking, climbing, yoga, or anything else active always took more effort than it should. There were days when simply walking felt like just too much.
Having chronic pain has been extremely isolating. Until getting married, I never really had to share this part of my life with anyone. I know very few people who can relate to the toll it takes on a person. Sure, there’s the debilitating physical pain, lack of answers, sleep disturbances, and being unable to participate in life as fully as I’d like. But what is really hard to talk about is the horrible things I began to believe about myself and my abilities. That I either deserve this pain or would never be able to get rid of it. That I’m unable to be active, work full-time, or travel. That I’m not strong enough for so many things. That there would just be certain parts of life I would maybe never get to experience.
How exhausting it is day in and day out to dedicate so much brain capacity to worrying about the pain—why is it there? Is it something more serious? Can I fix it with this or that? What if I try x, y, or z this time? Is the pain my fault? Is it the way I move or work out or the food I eat or my emotional state? If I go hiking, will I be out of commission for the following two days? Can I handle a job where I stand for 6-8 hours a day? What if I hurt myself and can no longer teach (or dance or surf or walk)? What if? What if? What if?
I understand now that my physical pain is a warning sign – a cry for help from my own body. I become stressed easily and I often feel anxious. I am learning to be kind with myself, to fully feel my feelings, to ask for help when I need it. I like to think I carried my pain for so long so it could teach me to slow down, learn more, heal, and eventually help others. I have to consistently remind myself to listen to my body. Rest more. Grow stronger. Be vulnerable. Share my story but don’t play the victim forever. Release tension and stress. Move my body daily. Quiet my mind and just listen. Sit with the uncomfortable emotions that are inevitable in life—anger, sadness, grief, worry, low self-esteem, lack of self-worth, negative self-talk. Experience it all. Don’t shove it down or laugh it off. Release it all. Feel sad, lost, disempowered. But move on. Pick myself up again and never stop trying.
I can’t quite pin down the exact moment I developed anxiety. It could have been during sophomore year of high school when I traded in my braces, bangs, and bad skin for unwanted attention because of my new, mature look. Maybe it was at age 27 when I was sexually assaulted. Or it had always been there since childhood and I just didn’t have the words to explain it. But I first labeled the feeling and admitting to experiencing anxiety around age 30. My anxiety stems from this need to be, look, and feel perfect. Every decision – no matter how small—is agonizingly painful to make. I tend to only see decisions in black and white or two extremes. What if I choose the “wrong” one? I worry I’ll feel trapped in a life-sentence of going down that one path.
In a recent conversation with a friend, we talked about how confident and sure everyone else seems to be in their decision to marry or find the “right” career for them. I ensured him that I think everyone else is just as scared as us. Maybe someone with zero anxiety does make decisions with more ease and assurance, but I think we are all scared. We marry because we meet the person who makes us FEEL safe enough or sure enough to try it. But no one is guaranteed that their marriage will last. Neither does a job or friendship or anything else in this life. Nothing is guaranteed. But finding that moment of bravery – taking that next step toward whatever it is you want for your life – means making a choice. Making no choice to move forward means you let fear (anxiety) win. We think that making no choice is better than the “wrong” choice, but how do you know which is wrong unless you try?
So what choice do you need to make? What’s holding you back from just picking one thing over the other? We exist in a time where we’re given too many endless options, which can also cause decision paralysis. We keep waiting to confirm that we’ve got the best version of a person, place, career, whatever. Our generation fears commitment – and not just regarding romantic relationships. We don’t want to commit to plans for fear of something better coming along. Yet we overcommit to things we should say no to out of fear of seeming lazy or lame or needing to always please others. We burn the candle at both ends until we’re anxious, sick, or too depressed to even show up.
My advice to this friend was to start making decisions that FEEL right to him. As a person who often feels anxious and unsure of my own decision-making skills, it’s easier to let other people decide for me. We let parents choose our career path; we let friends decide how we act, dress, and what we enjoy; we let society dictate everything else about what our life “should” look like because it’s easy. It’s uncomfortable to question the core of who you are as a person. Do you want to be anxious? Career-driven? Family-focused? Racist? Cruel? Free-spirited? Ignorant? You have the power to choose who YOU want to be. But you have to choose. You have to make daily choices that feel right for you. You can’t ask for permission to be who you really are. And you have to let go of the grip of perfectionism and worrying about how others will view the new you.
So decide. Today. Who do you want to be in the future and how do you work towards being that person? How can you make more decisions chosen not out of fear, but from self-love?
The path that just FEELS right— go there.
When you hear the word “yoga”, what kind of image do you conjure up in your mind? Do you picture a pretty, young, flexible woman doing a handstand or contorting into some impossible shape? Maybe you envision a yogi “JUST sitting and breathing”- so boring, right?
Looking back at the other styles of exercise I’ve tried over the years, I always wonder what about yoga made me stick with it. Like most people, I got into yoga for physical reasons— to get lean, lose weight, and align with something similar to my dance background. Little did I know, yoga would become so much more than a physical workout.
As I practiced and taught more, I developed an awareness of the spiritual and emotional benefits yoga provided. Yes, my physical body was more at ease; but the chatter in my mind had hushed, and more importantly, I took several lessons off the mat and with me into my life. I truly looked forward to that hour on the mat with no phone, no work, no responsibilities. That feeling was like nothing I had experienced in going to the gym, where I wasn’t allotted the time, space, or silence to think about what my body was doing or where my mind wandered when things got challenging or boring.
Yoga is so much more than the asanas (physical postures). Yoga encompasses meditation- the act of sitting in silence and simply observing one’s thoughts in order to create a new narrative. Yoga means finding movement that feels natural and safe yet challenging in one’s body. Yoga is synonymous with being kind to one’s self both on and off the mat. Yoga also means learning to breathe. REALLY breathe. The kind of deep-felt breath that changes your mood or the tension in your body. The kind of breath that allows you to pause and think before reacting. Yoga teaches mindfulness— that acute awareness of what we do and say, how we move our bodies, learning to be intuitive and in touch with our true needs and desires, and everything else in between. Yoga joins body, breath, mind, heart, and soul in a way few things in this world can. Yoga invites a deeper connection to self so we can feel more connected to others as well.
Yoga taught me so much more than physical poses and that’s why I’m so passionate about practicing it and sharing it with others. Maybe your yoga journey starts like mine— focused on the physical. But I guarantee if you stick with it and stay open-minded, you have so much more to learn and grow from.
Namaste
