Why Yoga is changing my life...

I have struggled with my weight since I was teen and thus I have struggled with my self esteem. I have known everything I needed to lose weight. I could never figure out the emotional eating. Bored...eating will give me something to do. Feeling sad...eating will make me happy. Feeling anxious...eating will calm me. No matter how many times I tried to lose weight...I ALWAYS fail. My brain constantly told me I was going to fail because I always have.

But then someone told me this, “Your past does not need to dictate your future!” Something changed in that moment. I became freed to be successful. I choose to take risk, live confidently, to see my own beauty and worthiness.

I began to challenge every negative thought. The voice in my head lies to me all the time. It lies to me so many times that I don’t even know what reality is any more. I began a practice of mindfulness and started going to yoga five days a week. My yoga classes are held in a room heated between 85-95 degrees with humidity around 45%. Its physically challenging yoga meant to create strength. The first few classes I melted, I nearly fainted. I would stare in the mirror and tell myself I was too fat for this. But I came the next day again because when I walked in the door is was about me. There was no requests asked of me other than to serve my needs. It became a refuge for my soul. I started to look at the mirror and say, “You are badass.’

As I continued to feed my soul with yoga and mindfulness, my eating began to shift. Food was losing its power over me. I wasn’t eating my emotions. Its not that it isn’t hard for me some days. I have bad eating days. The difference now is that I don’t say, “See you're failing like you always have.” But instead I am saying, “You had a rough day.” Thats it. I notice that I had a bad eating day but I don’t focus on it. I don’t give it grand meaning. I start again the next day. I freed myself of guilt.

On my sixth yoga class, the instructor asked me what I wanted to focus on and I told her I need more clues on how to modify things. Halfway through the class she said grab six blocks and meet me at the wall. I was freaking out inside and preparing to be embarrassed again. She had me place three yoga blocks under each shoulder with my head hanging in between and then I was to kick my legs up to the wall. I thought there's no way in hell I can get my fat ass up on that wall. The voice in my head was abusive and terrified. But I trusted my instructor and I tried. I kicked up a few times and she gave me some more instruction. I was dying inside. But then I tried again and I fucking did it. Then I did it again. The next day I tried without the blocks and it was no problem. Few days later I learned to lift my head up off the floor and to support my body with my forearms. I have yet to figure out the handstand but it's close.

Last night's yoga was incredibly hard and focused on the hips (not my favorite). The class was packed and I was struggling with my confidence. Nearing the end of class. The instructor asked us to clear the the floor and meet her at the front. She put us in lines and demonstrated cartwheels. Again I was dieing. The voice told me I was too big for that. It told me I couldn't. But I was in line and it was going to happen. I prepared and went for it. You know what? I flew. I did three cartwheels perfectly with bouncy. I honestly had no clue I could do that.  People commented on how well I did and I was equally shocked. I then looked over in the corner and there was a woman about my size who did not want to try. I use to be her but now I say yes. I try. I surprise myself.

After both of these classes I wept with joy. Its an amazing opportunity to be given the chance to prove yourself wrong. To tell the voices to shut the fuck up. To tell yourself, your past does not dictate your future. My body has so much more power then I think it does.

I have lost 30 pounds. My clothes are falling off, my body is toner, my boobs are smaller (I got to buy my first Victoria Secret bra!), I can run longer, food had less power in my life, I have a confidence and love for myself that I have never felt.

I am worthy to feel loved, to have friendship, worthy of time to myself, worthy to feel joy in the midst of others suffering, worthy to feel the energy of the Universe flow through me. I am not dictated by anything. My light shines bright and I feel the web of light that connects it all. Not only am I worthy, I know that I can do it. I believe in my light.

The Goal Now is to Find Identity without Doing

Raising young kids takes every ounce of energy you have. It is the most selfless time of your life. You spend your days watching them grow. Your hours are spent nursing, feeding, holding, teaching, and protecting them.  For the rest of my life I will have to let go as the twine unravels. It is one of the scariest emotions of my life. Trusting others with their heart and spirit. But I put my girls on a bus this year. And as I stood there as the tears flow down my face, the vacancy of purpose was fully felt. My heart ached but something inside of me pushed me forward. It’s your time. Do the work. Heal. Open. Create. Find joy.

All of this lead me to reflecting on my childhood and education. When I was young I was often withheld from the arts. It was something “I did not need.” Instead I would work with teachers on my reading, spelling and writing that were far behind my classmates. Their was this book of the most used 1000 words in the english language and I would study them. Read them. Write them. Spell them. Be them. And when they were mastered they would get crossed off and I would start the next ten words. 

As I went to middle school. I was not allowed to be in choir, band or orchestra. I took study hall with teachers to help me with my homework. As I grew older into high school I receive attention and praise for school work. I had learned at a young age the joy of surprising people when they underestimated me. That is why I ended up graduating with honors. I wanted the world to know that I was capable. But what I did not realize is the depth of the damage that was caused by judging myself on what I could produce. With a grade given on a piece of paper that means nothing now. I did not realize that I was withheld from creative expression. What a horrible thing to do to a child. Take away art and place all attention on the “core subjects.” There is a calling inside of me. I need to become my own arts teacher. As I put my toes in the water I am taken back at how alive I feel. Self expression is blood for the soul.

Recently I was photographed by the amazing Anna Yorrow for her Spirit & Bone collection. A collection about rawness, women, childhood, nature and transformation. When talking about my life I often talk about walls and shields that I have built to protect myself. As I sat in front of the camera, my witness, I found myself creating structure and a feeling of disappoint came over me. In the moment I interpreted the structures as barriers to protect me from the rawness of the experience. But as the experience began to unfold within me, it became clear that the structures did not represent shields but creation. The rocks, the sticks, the dead grass, the feathers, the debris were my building blocks. Building a being made full of strength and tenderness just like the rocks that crumble in my hands. Rotten trees fell at my feet. But there was life in the midst of it all. Flowering cacti at my back. Encouraging me to awaken.

I don’t have much experience with chakras. I do know that my heart chakra has always been a place of great pain for me. Jake and I have dabbled a little in tantric sex. But being a rape survivor it is challenging for me to give fully in this way. In recent years I have been able to be more fully present with intimacy. Recently I had a mystical experienced while making love. As the motions began I felt disconnected. I caught myself and asked my heart to open. In that moment it felt like my heart chakra broke open. My breath moved easily through my chest. I felt deeply connected to All That Is. But even more I felt worthy. I felt worthy of touch, of attraction and of love. In that moment I felt radical acceptance of myself and weeped with joy.

I am at a threshold. Letting go of old coping methods that no longer serve me. Its interesting that the more connected I become with myself the more I crave connection with others. Sharing vulnerability is a strength and much needed honesty in our culture.

Here is my reading from the gallery opening...

Sometimes I wonder if becoming a mother was a cop-out.

At twenty I had lost everything. Not my belongings, my family, or my friends. I had lost myself. A man took that from me.

I worry that people don’t want to read another story about a woman finding herself after rape. It’s like a broken record. It’s “here we go again.”  

But my chalkboard, that once described my essence, was wiped clean. My dreams taken by the wind.

Can a women become broken when her bones are intact? When her flesh is unblemished?

And if women can...what heals her?

Can the love of a man or the weight of a baby? What heals her heart? What heals a life unlived?

I have felt the loving caress of a man and I have held three babies in my arms. I have fed them from my breast and birthed them from my shadows.

But if you take them all away. If you take the roles of wife and mother. What is left?

Brokenness. My roles are a blanket that shields the work undone.

My chalkboard still wiped clean. Vacancy.

I tend to hold these blankets close, thinking they are offering protection from the world.

But all along the blankets themselves were preventing my healing. Blocking the light from shining on my broken bones and blemished skin.

I have given my blankets up to the Universe. I have let my roles as mother and wife stand beside me and not cover me.

Now I stand in this dry river bed. With my brokenness.

I begin again. My bones and tissues begin to mend. My chalkboard, my canvas.