My Yoga Journey to Healing
My story begins at 13 years old. I began having back pain and knee pain. I was taken to my primary doctor, was given a few physical therapy exercises for my knees, instructed to wear a soft knee brace and try to lighten the load of my school backpack. I carried this chronic pain with me all the way to 20 years old until my knees started giving away when I would try to climb stairs. I was 20 years old and could not climb stairs without falling down. I had x-rays done on my back and knees and because I couldn’t pinpoint a point of time in my young life where injuries could have occurred I was given pain meds and sent off to physical therapy with little information to go on. I could not do physical therapy without the pain meds and just didn’t feel like this was the answer. Something was missing.
Out of desperation I decided to join a restorative yoga class. The teacher Natalie had a passion for healing and to answer the question why. She encouraged me to have a one on one session with her so we can find the root of my problem as I continued to struggle to do a few poses in her class. After listening to me explain my pain in my knees and my whole back she told me I had been living with chronic pain for most of my life. I had never heard anyone tell me this. It was a relief as I had always thought from 13 years of age I was lazy or not capable of athletic ability or to even enjoy a work out at the gym. For the first time I was able to give myself grace!
Natalie immediately started reworking my posture. She analyzed the way I walked the way I stood. She then taught me all over again how to walk. Her instruction changed my life! After three months of continued yoga classes and using her therapy exercises at home for the first time in my life I was nearly pain-free!
What Natalie taught me stayed with me through the following years. I fell out of doing yoga and was busy starting a family, but even during that time those practices she taught stuck with me. It carried me through the physical weight of 3 pregnancies.
Nine years after being with Natalie I reconnected with her. She was advertising for yoga teacher training. I remembered what she had done for me, what she had taught me and I wanted to learn more to become stronger. During those 9 years I had learned that I had a torn meniscus in one maybe both knees maybe ever since I was 13 and with my understanding of what Natalie taught me I knew what I needed to do to continue to protect my knees and avoid surgery. I wanted to give others the same hope and peace so I joined Natalie‘s yoga teacher training. After seven years of being a yoga teacher I am now able to provide the same posture therapy that Natalie provided me. There are many more details left out of my journey with my chronic pain. But Natalie taught me and my own life experience has taught me that it’s never too late. Whether you get surgery or not for anything from your hips, your knees, your feet, your toes we always have to be ready to take care of our posture from the feet up. If you would like to learn more about my story or what you can receive through posture therapy with me please reach out and email me. I would love to listen to your story and see what I can do to help!
Detoxing & Yoga
Detoxing. We all do it or at least should every once in awhile. Generally detoxing doesn’t feel good. That’s why we don’t tend to look forward to healthy changes in our diet or lifestyle. I’ve talked about my journey through fasting. There is a lot of detoxing that takes place over and over again. What is detoxing? It’s the bodies shedding of toxins from the body. It normally happens when we fast, cut out a harmful food and/or add a food or supplement full of pro and prebiotics that then can kill and eat those harmful bacteria. So if you are going through the early days of a diet or lifestyle change and feel like crap keep going! Your body will thank you!
There are many ways to ease detoxing or make it go faster. One of my favorite ways is yoga! Believe me, when a detox is giving me flu like symptoms yoga is the last thing I want to do but when you feel like you have the flu your nervous system is going through a tremendous amount of stress you are battling and retraining your brain that has grown accustomed to the need for whatever you are cutting out of your life or diet and if you are doing it to lose weight there is another layer of phsycological warfare going on inside. All of this can also cause toxic build up in the body not to mention the tightening of you muscles as you try to handle the stress so we need to release it. We need to soften the body release tension and bring ourselves into a posture of grace for ourselves.
Postponing your walk in the sunshine or yoga practice because you are going through a detox may not be the best choice. Yesterday I was experiencing more of the emotional side effects of detoxing. I had two yoga classes to teach. There was no skipping class in my case but after my first class I had release a little. Not only was I stretching and releasing physical tension I was feeding my social soul in interacting with others who also wanted better for themselves and their bodies! After teaching my second class in the evening my body felt light and relaxed! Was the emotional side effect of detoxing still there? This time yes. But it was still the ONLY side effect. If I hadn’t taken care of physical needs it would have been more than just my emotions affected my whole body would have been in knots.
My advice, always try to push through and show up through your detox, BUT do it for you and if you need HELP to do that, ASK for it!
If you would like to take a look at my available classes follow the button below to my classes page.
Not today.
“Not today”. That’s what I told myself mid morning when my stomach was growling and I felt a little off. Today I wasn’t going to fast. Today I was going to eat. Eat and eat well! I am on a weight loss journey right now as I heal in postpartum. It is very difficult for my body to return to it’s natural state after pregnancy and birth. In the past I had done weight loss programs that didn’t allow me to say “not today”. That was so psychologically damaging. In her book “Fast Like a Girl” Dr. Mindy Pelz talks about the deep psychological damage diets do to our brain. The level of shame we feel. How easy it is to “fall of the wagon” and deal with the repercussions days later. Diets may make us feel better or lose weight but they are only taking away and not sustaining, not building, not strengthening so when we have a “bad” day or a day that eating ice cream with your kids is more important than that pound you could have lost. With a diet we have to choose, which can make us depressed, can cause us to withdraw from life and loved ones, or feel shame. I have learned with fasting I don’t have to choose but I do have to plan. I’m sitting in a coffee shop with my husband and enjoying a full flavored mocha! I’m taking in the whole experience. I’m filling my soul today. The pound or 2 can wait until tomorrow. A holistic lifestyle is not about saying no. It is about building a healthy body and mind that is strong enough to take the hit for the stressful day or the big holiday feast! A healthy diet plan is temporary and so delicate. A healthy lifestyle is a long lasting fortress!
Fasting has allowed me to enjoy all the pleasures of life. It has allowed me to fight my anxiety and postpartum depression. It has kept the puffiness and swelling away. To date I have lost 20lbs in 3 months. I have never lost weight that fast. I am 35 and have 4 children. I saw a picture of myself when I was 20. Most people look back at pictures of themselves in their 20’s and wish for that body or skin again. I DON’T! That poor girl had chronic pain, she had terrible acne and she was so puffy! 15 years later my skin is beautiful, my body looks pretty good for having 4 kids and I have left behind the chronic pain! If someone tells you getting old means pills, pain and the beginning of the end that’s a person who has given up thinking there could be something more something better! It’s not just fine wine that becomes better with age people do too! Just like wine if we build ourselves in an environment or lifestyle for us to thrive, in our advancing age we will become better!
If you are interested in learning more about fasting follow the link below to “My Favorites” Page where you can find Dr. Mindy Pelzs podcast or her book “Fast Like a Girl”.
It’s not a dirty little secret: Fasting
In my last blog post I mentioned I would build on my 2 new main resources for building my health aside from yoga. Today I will briefly touch on fasting. I’ll start from the beginning. My junior year of high school I started fasting, but I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. I did it until I was married 3 years later. I look back on that time and see a healthy vibrant young woman and not just because I was a teenager. I’ve dealt with chronic back and knee pain since I was in Jr. High. I don’t remember so much of it during that time I was “accidentally” fasting. It was my “dirty little secret”. I thought I was doing something wrong. When I stopped fasting after I was married the chronic pain came back harder than ever.
Fast forward 16 years full of thousands dumped in weight loss plans, battling terrible post partum 4 times as well as anxiety and depression fasting has come back to my life and I am learning its not harmful but incredibly helpful! Don’t get me wrong I have learned a lot of very helpful things in the last 16 years about my health but this time is different. I am realizing the accidental wisdom of my younger self was right but when you’re young we are often told we don’t know anything about our bodies, pushing out that innate wisdom our body all ready has. Look at babies they may not know how to communicate with words but their body sure knows what it is doing and why.
I have just started my fasting journey and will continue to share as I go! Below is a button to send you to my fasting resource; Dr. Mindy Pelz.
tis the season…
Tis the season to lose that extra jolly. Am I right? Don’t you just love it when January 2 hits, when you are at your most fatigued, possibly depressed, anxious and shaky from the sugar withdrawals and the world decides its time to hit you hard with what you need to do to fix yourself at a time you are most vulnerable. It can be a lot to swallow and we feel such a push to make changes, which is good, BUT not when we are at such a vulnerable state. How many times has our health resolutions fallen flat because we made those decisions in a state of vulnerability. These decisions were likely made out of disgust towards ourselves or in a moment of desperation. They become rash and at times financially costly.
At this time of the year where our minds are turning towards health and change I want to share what I am doing in my health journey. I want to make these blog posts brief as we have enough stimulation. Below I am going to drop my 2 main sources I am building my health from. Over the next few months I will build on these resources. Here’s why I want you to check these two resources out.
They are FREE, you don’t have to spend an extra penny if you don’t want to. They actually might save you money.
They are holistic and backed by science. Drop the drugs, the powders, or the special weight loss bar.
They can be curated to your unique and special makeup of your body.
They will bring you pride in being creative and giving you the opportunity to be the authority and specialist for your body.
Fasting
I started fasting 2 months ago and have already lost 10lbs! Yes through the holidays and I got to enjoy all the goodies! It has not cost me anything AND saved me money at the grocery store!
Cultured Foods
Cultured foods is full of more pro and prebiotics we could ever take in pill form! It killed my candida overgrowth I battled for 2 years and it also has helped me lose weight and feel good!
Check out these resources below! Just be curious and explore!