a yoga love letter

I have this really great friend and she just happens to live in my house. rabbit moved into mudflower when we took off on our grand adventure to the northeast last summer and loved life on the mountain so very much she decided to stay. what a gift it has been to our family and our community to have rabbit as part of our household. she's an amazing cook, a creative genius when it comes to crafting and sewing, a total boss at board games and jigsaw puzzles, and the best popcorn chef I have ever met. late night talks with rabbit made my dark autumn pass a little easier. and living with someone who can talk about bikram is about the best thing of all. any given night you can find rabbit and I comparing poses in the kitchen or trying to explain to eric what camel really feels like. I highly recommend you all consider having a rabbit in your basement. you just can't have ours :)

In the months before starting yoga, my adopted son turned 18, moved in with his birth mother, dropped out of high school, and stopped talking to me. My wife and I separated, which meant I moved out of the home we had created together, leaving behind two dogs and our cat.

I was a mess.

My physician had prescribed an antidepressant and an anti-anxiety medication to calm me down enough so I could sleep at night. Without sleep, I am prone to seizures. Every night I was wheezing and coughing until I gagged. Inhalers and cough syrups did nothing to alleviate these symptoms of something deeper. My life as I was living it, was suffocating and strangling me. All the unspoken hurts and anger I felt were trapped in my throat, which was constricting itself tighter and tighter. My jaw was in constant pain from all the stress I carried in it. My marriage had fallen into a tangle of lies and disrespect. The loss and pain I felt was blinding me to all the joy and beauty of the world.

            Bikram yoga let me slow down and taught me how to breathe. Breathing which should be so easy, so instinctual, had become a daily struggle for me. In class I would breathe deeply, filling my lungs, calming myself. Keeping my breath slow and easy in a 105 degree room, while physically challenging my body, was a lesson for my life. And through this, I found myself.

I found peace.

            During my first few classes, I visualized my heart covered in thick dark tar, representing all the sadness, hurt, betrayal and loss that was strangling it. Day after day, class after class, I poured love into my own heart. Yoga fed my soul and my heart. Classmates who bravely opened their own hearts surrounded me. As my own heart grew stronger, I now saw it pulsing with a bright blue light of love that eviscerated all of the shadows of pain and loss.

            The deepest heart opener pose we do is camel. Every time I do it now, I feel my chest stretching open, letting my bright blue love light flow out. I repay the love and strength I received from my classmates by sending them love, when I feel strong.

            I no longer take an anti-depressant, anti-anxiety medicine, daily inhaler, or an emergency inhaler. I sleep soundly every night. I have watched my body grow stronger and more flexible. I am present in my body and in my life. I have released the pain, stress and anxiety that were making me ill. I feel strong and capable. My life is not perfect, just as my yoga practice is not perfect, but the beautiful thing is: it doesn’t have to be. In and out of the hot room I grant myself grace. I accept that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, while growing just a tiny bit each day, just the width of a hair.

Thank you so much to Vivian, Janet, Camille, and every yoga teacher I have had. And thank you especially to Vivian and Jill for taking a chance on opening a Bikram Yoga studio in the little town of Brevard, North Carolina. Your timing was just perfect.