Emotional Yoga- moving the body and mind

Yoga in a train station.  Brisbane Australia

I went to my first yoga class in months last Thursday.  For those of you who know me, you know that yoga used to be my "thing."  I practiced pretty much every day.  Sometimes even twice a day.  In 2006 I awkwardly took my first class.  I was hooked from day one even though I was uncoordinated, falling down, and was extremely ungraceful.  Imagine a flamingo trying to do yoga, all knees and awkward.  That was me.  Even though my first few classes were challenging and I felt like an idiot, I still really dug it.  I stuck with it even though it felt weird.  I had actually found a form of movement that I liked!  I eventually felt strong, confident, determined and beautiful.  This was my kind of exercise.   It was slow and calculated.  Calming.  I could breathe and concentrate on only me and what my body needed to do.  I could turn my thoughts inward and connect with myself.  I craved it.  I was even considering becoming a yoga instructor.

Then something happened.  Once I relapsed back into my eating disorder, yoga turned into something very different.  I started focusing on the wrong things.  Instead of loving what my body was capable of doing and accepting that, I started to worry rather than relax:  What did I look like?  What body part wasn't right?  Why were my arms so big?  Who here is thinner than I am?  Damn it, why couldn't I do this pose?  Why wasn't I perfect at this yet?  I wasn't good enough.  Like many other things in my life, if I was not perfect, if I was not the best, I didn't think I had any business doing it at all.  My practice became more about what I should be able to do and my expectations of myself rather than an authentic experience.  It was no longer a release for me, but another thing to stress about.  My mat got shoved in the back of my car under the jumper cables; forgotten.

I would occasionally go to a class here and there.  I even got to do light yoga while I was away in the hospital for treatment.  I didn't stick with it as I had before because it fell second to the eating disorder.  I didn't fully appreciate my body.  Inside I loathed its weak boundaries and  incapability.  But last week I gave it another go.  Those true, original thoughts came back.  The appreciation, the patience, the acceptance.  I couldn't do everything I once could do but I was ok with that.  I wasn't quite as flexible, I needed some adjusting, I had a little trouble following instruction.  But it was alright.  I accepted my imperfections.  I accepted where I was that day.  I didn't put any pressure on myself and it was an amazing practice.

During the final pose (savasana) I started to cry.  Not a sobbing, earth-shattering wail, but fat tears rolled down my cheeks as I lie face-up on the floor.  I figured they might.  I could feel them rising up even before the pose and this wasn't the first time this has happened.  Having an emotional release during yoga is actually quite normal, especially during that final pose.  Even so, I was really hoping no one else would notice.  After at first trying to stifle them back, I decided to let go and be gentle with myself.  Instead of judgmental and critical of myself, I became curious as to why I was crying.  I came up with this:  I have been mean to my body.  Awful to it really.  I have been terrible to myself.  While the kind words of my instructor pierced my consciousness, I took her words to heart.  What I have done in the past, is past.  I am forgiven.  I forgive myself for how I have treated myself.  I have abused my body both in the physical sense and the mental.  No, my body is not perfect, but it is mine to take care of.  It is the only one I have been given.  Why have I punished my body so?  Why have I denied it care, fuel, love and compassion?  What has this body done that is so wrong and unforgivable?  Nothing.  It doesn't deserve the treatment I have dealt it.  I don't deserve it.

So yeah!  Wow!  How could I not cry while coming to this realization?  Now I wouldn't say that this one yoga class "healed" me.  I have had a difficult time with my ED as of late.  But, if I can bring this up again, if I can be gentle, curious and non-judgmental of myself, maybe I will be heading in the right direction.  More yoga, more emotion and more connection.  Namaste.

Live on!
-Kristy

From Funk to Friends- finding reconnection

Let's see how many of my friends read my blog!  Haha!

I'm in a funk.  Yup.  A compete funkfest.  I'd love to blame it all on the season but I am afraid it 's more than that.  The weather here has been beautiful with the exception of today, so it's not just the fall blues.  I'm not feeling down all of the time.  I have moments of funklessness.  But for the most part, I am feeling low and melancholy.  Oh, and when I say melancholy I mean I could totally spend this dreary day at my favorite cemetery reading Sylvia Plath and listening to my poor-me playlist.  "Did she just say her favorite cemetery?"  The thing is, I think I could fix this.  I know what I need to do.  It's just getting my sad ass up and doing it.  What I need to do is eat, (obviously, duh) and connect; both with others and myself.  These two things seem so simple.  Eat and connect.  Voila!  The problem with depression is it likes to keep me idle and detached.  It disables me from moving forward.  The role of the depression is to lock me up and throw away the key.  Logically, I know what to do.  I just have to shake this devil off my back.

Friends Under the Rain 

by Leonid Afremov

 

So, here is a shout out to all of my friends:  you will most likely be getting a call from me.  I know, sit by your phones, have your Skype up and running.  I'm coming out of my hole.  I have some amazing life-long friends and some incredible newer comrades.  One friend in particular has been in my life just a few years and in that time she has always been there for me.  I know if I needed her she would come running.  I just have a hard time asking.  She needs me too.  However, since I hit these patches, I tend to isolate and hermit myself.  In short, I haven't been putting out the effort.  I have not been the greatest friend.  What do I expect in return?  I have friends I haven't heard from in a while and I take that personally.  Maybe I am too much.  I am too overwhelming.  I have outworn my welcome.  Used up my friendship card.  This can't be true for all of my friends.  The phone works both ways.  The people who don't want to be here will show themselves out and some have.  But not everyone.  The people who have been in my life have proven that they don't mind that I am...well...me!  I have to remind myself, it's not always about me.  The friends I haven't heard from might be going through their own "funk" and I would know that if I put the effort in and connected with them.  Instead, I tend to turn it into a "me" thing.  No more.  Phones will be ringing, texts will be sent, reconnection will be established.  If any of my friends are reading this, you have been warned.

What I  also need to do is go over the list of people I have in my life and the people I want in my life.  I must let go of the people who have made it clear that a relationship with me is not a necessity for them, and really focus on the people who do what to know me.  For too long I have been wasting my time forcing relationships with people who don't need it as much as I do.  I have to let those go.  I have to quit trying to change me for them.  I will never be everything for everybody.  Kristy is not everyone's cup of tea and I truly have to accept that.  I need to put my energy back into the circle of people who are important to me and those I want to have a relationship with.  Those who really want to be in it with me.

I think once I make that human connection with that important circle again, the eating part will come more naturally.  An eating disorder really wants its host to be alone.  It's easier to survive if there is no one around to challenge the rigid and crazy rules and behaviors.  One is so much easier to control when there is a disconnect with people and feelings.  Connection is the eating disorder's enemy.  If I can force myself to take that step, accept me as I am, and see that my loved ones do too, I believe the food piece will fall back into place.  So here I go, one reach-out at a time.  I'm calling.

"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you.  You just got to find the ones worth suffering for."  -Bob Marley

-Kristy