Yoga found me first through impatience, then through heartbreak.
In June 2014, I had what was supposed to be a 30 minute commute interning for an online newspaper. That internship later turned into a full-time job that caused me to move closer to the job, but for three months, I was traveling on Interstate 64 approximately 22 miles each way.
But at 5 p.m. on any given weekday, those 22 miles took anywhere between 50 minutes and two hours to cover, even with the three different routes I could potentially take to get home. The end of the day came with a series of groans as I checked the traffic online, knowing I would be sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, quickly growing impatient and frustrated, trying to fight back the urge to scream at every car that cut me off.
I can’t quite remember how I came to this decision, but in July 2014, I convinced myself that instead of sitting in traffic for two hours and letting the frustrations get to me, I would sit in a hot yoga room for an hour, get out at 7 p.m. and hit zero traffic coming home. I would still get home late, but at least I’d get something out of it.
I’d only done asana, or the physical practice of yoga, a handful of times, but I had a background in running, so I figured I’d do alright.
I began going once, twice a week, struggling through the poses, always looking around, feeling lost and admiring the men and women who could nail the “cool” poses. I couldn’t do a simple chattarunga for 2 months. Sometimes I just sat back on my heels and watched.
But I kept going back, until I was going five nights a week. I got my own mat and started practicing poses in my living room while my roommate’s cat Liza attacked me. All I could talk about was yoga.
For a long time, I was only drawn to the physical part of practice, and resisted the mental and spiritual part of it. I hated how much time we spent just breathing. I didn’t stay very long in savasana, or corpse pose. I didn’t talk to anyone else before or after class – I just wanted to get in my car and call my boyfriend and tell him how wonderful my practice had been.
Which brings me to the next level of how yoga found me – through heartbreak. A two-and-a-half year relationship ended suddenly at the end of the summer, when I was transitioning to full-time with the newspaper, and it threw me into a depression.
Without sounding too dramatic, I’ll tell you yoga brought me out of the depression during the long months of fall and winter. Yoga became my lifeline. I became the last to leave the studio each night, laying in savasana, repeating a mantra to myself: “You are strong, mentally and physically.”
I began really paying attention to what the yoga teachers were saying, beyond the cues of the physical asanas. Sometimes, the words they said would trigger something in me, and a wave of emotion would leave me crying in happy baby, or laughing in wind removing pose.
I bought Rolf Gates’ book, Meditations on the Mat, and would sit in my car before class reading and repeating mantras to myself.
I decided I felt emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally better when I didn’t drink alcohol, so I cut off all alcohol consumption for six months.
I went to bed early, put in my 10 or 12-hour work day in the newsroom and then surrendered myself to my practice each night.
By the spring, I had come out of my funk with a new perspective. I radiated positivity and optimism like I never had before, and it was refreshing, and it felt good.
I had dance parties with my friends. I stayed up until 2 a.m. playing catch phrase. I explored. I became closer with my mother. I canceled my Netflix and started reading a book a week. I recognized that it was okay that I didn't enjoy going to a bar and getting wasted. I stopped judging. I stopped complaining.
And I owe it all to yoga.
I ask you now how yoga found you. Not how you found yoga – you may have found it initially, but if it’s truly in your life, if you can feel its power radiating through your bones when you feel like quitting, then you’ll know how it found you.
So, how did yoga find you?