The Straws on my back
What brought me to yoga and becoming a yoga teacher? One of the least sporting and inflexible Irish people. Simply put, I needed healing and I found it, through the practice, but as with any good story, it is not as simple as that and my story is no different.
Dabbling is about all I did in regards to yoga for several years. I knew it was something I ‘should’ be doing yet never had the resolve to commit fully.
Fast forward to 30 years old, living in Australia. I had what was on paper, the idyllic life. I had been promoted quickly in my career and was the assistant spa manager in a stunning spa on an island in the Whitsundays, the gateway to the great barrier reef. Amazing, stunning, biblical ‘Eden’ like scenery. I was young, single, earning more money than I ever thought I would and I had wonderful friendships. I worked out six days a week and walked religiously every day, I was still only dabbling with yoga but improving. I ate what I felt was a healthy diet. Yet something was very amiss. I began to suffer chronic pain, my body was always aching. Having had a car accident in my twenties leading to a whiplash injury and add to that years of massage therapy, giving not receiving, the effects on my body were beginning to accumulate. Then, I suppose the icing to the ‘ache cake’ was stress, bigger wages means bigger responsibility and bigger drama. I started suffering migraines, major ones, crawling on my knees vomiting, vertigo, blurred vision, hearing noises and wondering if I had a brain tumour type migraines. Stress, that was probably the biggest factor in the triggering of what still is a life altering illness, it still is without doubt my major trigger for them. Back then, I didn’t have any tools to cope but I desperately searched for cures, answers, treatments, anything just to help and was taking a lot of painkillers to get through the long work weeks. I enjoyed the idea of the healing aspect of my job as a therapist. I was rather naive to the business angle and when it became purely about profit, up-selling, 60 hour work weeks etc. It no longer felt aligned with those ideals I started the career with, a common occurrence I guess. It felt empty somehow and I lost any joy.
The mirror
My boss, the spa manager at the time, was a lovely, caring, gentle soul, she was also air lifted twice from our island due to stomach pains so bad she was on morphine drips. She exuded calm with a silky voice, as therapists we are trained to do, to create a sense of serenity for our therapeutic guests in our presence no matter what the reality of working in the spa might actually be behind the scenes. Yet behind her eyes were flashes of exhaustion, bewilderment and monumental stress borne through in her bodies physical cries for help. I looked at this dedicated woman, possibly 15 years my senior, single, living on the island, her life of long work days searching for ways to hit targets, boost sales, cut costs, sell- sell -sell, bottom line figures.. was like looking into a time machine mirror. I knew something had to give. During this difficult period I went home to Ireland for a short visit, hoping I would find respite and to ‘refill my cup’ with family. I found my world there also turned upside down with huge divides through the foundations of my family that sent me reeling further. I returned to Australia and I decided I would quit my job.
Being tempted and tested by the universe
Madness? Maybe. So that was the end of the problems? That was just the introduction. In quitting that job and massage therapy altogether I set in motion a chain reaction of events. I was head hunted and offered more than one spa manager position within a short space of time after I turned in my ticket. To say I was flattered and very tempted is an understatement, again financially and on paper it was the best course of action for my career, my prospects, my bank balance, my ego, all would be boosted to the extreme. I convinced myself I would do it for two years, save for a house, then change careers or maybe go back to college. I was considering the positions seriously when I spoke to my Yoga teacher friend, with whom I was living, about the curious fact these positions all came up just when I had decided to quit.. and she said something profound (as usual). Sometimes when we make a big life changing decision, the universe tests us and asks us if we are really committed to this change? Or do we need another go on the merry go round to learn a particular lesson? Boom! It was exactly what I needed to hear. I knew in my heart I would just go deeper down the ‘health vs wealth’ hole and get entrenched in the quick sand of mortgages and bills that would lock me in to staying well past any ‘promised myself I’d quit’ date, in jobs that were destroying my soul and my health. I realise not everyone is in a position to simply quit their jobs, I don’t advocate for that. Some people thrive on their careers, high octane jobs and long work weeks. I simply was not in a career that suited me and that drove my purpose, instead it was driving me to a break down.
From here I deepened my meditation practice and began a daily yoga practice of my own. I had enough, if sparse, knowledge of the yoga postures to begin and now a real incentive, my constant body pains, migraines and my own issues that I was carrying of stress and low level depression, something I realise now I had struggled with on and off all my life. I also realise now, that the ‘working out’ that I did before was about punishment for my body. Yoga was about learning to love my body.
So, flip forward a few years, after several months in South East Asia, now back home in Ireland, still aimless in regards to the long range forecast of a career but yoga is now part of my daily routine and my survival toolbox. I didn’t have the confidence to become a yoga teacher, yet, but I knew I wanted to explore and devour information on my, now, passion. My son was born and my Father passed away, all in the same year. Both these monumental events again became the incentives that drove me to seek the training that set me up to be a teacher. Birth and death have a way of shifting things into focus and I knew I needed this. To say I have faced many personal demons and had numerous dark nights of the soul on this road is putting it lightly. I have worked through what is a life time of conditioning, poor self care and self destructive behaviours mostly accumulated in my childhood and just the very experience of being a human. I have unlearned, relearned and been through the fires of responsibility and ownership of who I really am, raw and unabashed. The work is sometimes seems torturous then you have the break throughs. I wouldn’t change a moment of the process. It is a life long task and I am sure I have many more layers to sift through. Sometimes you have to break down, right down to the foundations, to build something better.
Yoga is my medicine
Yoga is physically tremendously medicinal, yet it is in our improved mental health, emotional growth and the clarifying of our spiritual purpose, yoga really begins to work its magic.
My migraines are not fully ‘cured’, yet they are vastly reduced and manageable without medication and it provides me with more tools than ever before to keep them in check. My body occasionally aches of course, I am a mother, running my own business and raising a spirited boy single handedly at 40, but it is not broken and wrecked the way I once felt, in fact my body has never felt stronger and more like my own. Most importantly my boundaries have never been stronger. I feel purposeful, energised and inspired by life, mostly, we all have days but even those days are still really ok. You won’t find me in any of the most complex “yoga” poses that fill Instagram and fuel the competitive Western ego rather than fuel the soul and that too is part of my learning, my body is still amazing. Teaching yoga is an honour and I want to share the healing that I have accessed with those who wish to learn. When I listened to the messages my body was giving me, when I really paid attention, which is part of what yoga teaches us, I set in motion a life which would see me travel a whole new incredible path, that is not just a new direction but a whole new way of being.