Introduction
The millennium was a year of great upheaval and change for me. I was experiencing increasing despair in all aspects of life: relationships – especially with myself; career; home environment; health. I found myself at my lowest ebb on my first trip to Vancouver – August 2000 – to visit my beloved sister who had emigrated with her partner earlier in the year.
I didn’t know it then, but I already had a history of depression that had shaped my life to that point. My sister was the only person in my life who had been with me through some of the highs and lows, so her emigration hit me hard. In the time since she had left my personal and work life had declined – I was resurfacing after an abusive relationship had ended and I was being bullied at work. I had always used alcohol as a means of making myself and my life palatable so this is what I turned to – drugs and alcohol to see me though the days.
I arrived in Vancouver to spend a month with my lovely sis and her partner but I was tormented – obsessive thoughts about my work situation that wouldn’t leave my mind, my body racked with pain making it impossible for me to sit through long car journeys, on the edge of crying and screaming. I didn’t want to inflict my miserable self on my sister so we agreed to some separate trips which is how I found myself alone on a ferry to Vancouver Island, staring into the water and planning to jump. And that is when I heard the voice in my head saying
“You have got yourself into this situation, why not try and get yourself out? You can jump at any time – but why not give it a go?”.
So that’s what I did. I made the vow “to be the best I can be”, got a tattoo to mark the occasion and came back from Vancouver ready to commit to doing everything I needed to do “to be the best I can be”.
Creating Better Health
My mental health had always kept me away from doctors surgeries. I was afraid I would be locked away, that I would lose my job and my home, and be excluded from society. [Whilst great leaps have been made to reduce stigma around mental health, I feel it’s still pretty much the same nowadays.] However I knew I needed help with my physical health problems so I made an appointment with a doctor – I can still picture him sat behind his desk which was piled high with files. I felt I was imposing, taking up his valuable time, but I did manage to voice my list of things that didn’t feel right, steering clear of any mental health discussion. Here is the medical advice I initially received:
“Oh what a lot of things you have wrong with you. What do you expect me to do?”.
I had no answer to that.
“Why don’t you join a netball team – my daughter plays netball. And get yourself a boyfriend”.
I had no answer to that either.
I felt perversely grateful, thanked him for his time and left. On the way home I passed a graveyard, all quiet and leafy in the sunshine. I went in, sat with the souls of those long departed, and sobbed. I felt very much alone as I realised that I had to find help via different avenues.
My back was my priority. I found it constantly painful to sit and stand, and sometimes my spine would just give up - a colleague would drive me home and I’d spend a couple of weeks in agony. From somewhere came focus and determination. I made an appointment with the occupational health team, a chiropractor and various other specialists. Over time this list grew to include craniosacral therapy, physiotherapy, lots of massage therapists of all kinds, osteopathy, tuina, kore therapy, reiki, antaneea body work, altai massage, a gym programme, aerobics, pilates and a developing commitment to yoga.
The massages hurt. Some days my body would be bruised and so sore that sitting at a desk was incredibly painful. I knew I wanted and needed a career change and initially thought I would be a massage therapist – I was taking a course at night school in Swedish Body Massage. But there were a couple of things preventing me from wholly committing to the vision of myself as a massage therapist:
My back wouldn’t allow me to massage anyone for longer than about 20 minutes so the thought of doing that all day, every day was impossible;
Massage didn’t seem enough to offer people as a healing path – it helped but it didn’t touch the inner void that I felt was at the core of my own health breakdown.
Still, I didn’t have any better ideas at the time so I looked for a practice that would continue to help heal and support my back as I developed the idea of leaving my current job and forging a career in something that would make sense to me, that would benefit others, and that I might actually enjoy.
That practice was Yoga.
My Developing Relationship With Yoga
I have a long history with my back pain. The aches and pains had started at the age of 26 – I found myself thinking that sometimes I sounded like I was in my 70’s, not my 20’s (this is how poor health can age us if we overly attach to the physical experience). I had attended a few yoga classes, some of which I had found rather peculiar - especially the male teacher who talked about wombs and bleeding, and got us all to run around the room shrieking and flinging ourselves over bolsters (I didn’t stick with his classes). But yoga offered many things that appealed to me:
The Yoga Body. Like many young women I had a very poor self image, a history of abusive eating practices and the desire to have a better body – thinner, stronger, more shapely, impressively bendy because that’s important – right?
Relaxation. I didn’t have a clue what that word meant. When I lay down for relaxation at the end of a class all I was aware of were hard, sore muscles and my screaming, desperate mind. I knew I needed to find out more about relaxation;
Spirituality. Who were all these brightly coloured Hindu deities that could remove my obstacles and bring me abundance and light? Did I have a soul? If I did have a soul, what was it, and what did it all mean? I had turned my back on Christianity at the age of 14 when the local Christian Youth Club leader told me I would burn in the eternal fires of hell, like a worm, never dying, if I was not baptised in the Christian faith – they’ve got a nice way with words, those Christians. I wanted to find a God I could believe in.
It is only from where I am now that I can see I placed many expectations on my yoga practice:
I expected yoga would heal me
I expected teaching yoga would be a great career for me
I expected yoga to heal anyone who practiced it
I expected yoga people to be rather saintly and always nice to each other – and I expected that of myself also.
I also developed a lot of rules around my yoga life:
I had to do ‘it’ every day*
I had to eat clean
No alcohol
No TV
No more pubs or clubs
No more hanging out with people who weren’t on the same path
Lots of praying, chanting and meditating
Dedicating my life to yoga
Lots of workshops, classes and learning
A complete wardrobe change – at some point on the western path of yoga the brightly coloured harem pants and shalwar kameez accompanied by a few malas and an Om tattoo become mandatory.
*I’ve put ‘it’ in quotations here as I’m still working out what a yoga practice is. Is it some physical movements you perform mindfully on a yoga mat? On your own or with a goat? Is it days and days of silent meditation, exploring inner communion? Is it being kind and loving to everyone you meet even when you don’t feel like it? Is it being able to do a headstand? Is it chanting till you feel dizzy and paying homage to Hindu deities? Is it about clearing your chakras, experiencing kundalini rising, attaining the state of Samadhi and becoming enlightened? Is it about being able to deliver practical assistance to people in your community whilst learning how to be content in your own life?
This was a total and complete lifestyle change for me and I made a very serious business of it, cutting out everything and everyone I had loved and known up to that point in my life. And I consistently failed to meet my own expectations of myself, so I was in a state of constant striving to be better. Again it was only later, as I started to come to terms with the stress and depression I struggle with, that I realised these were all my coping mechanisms, and they helped me immensely at the time, creating an illusion of safety and control, but I was hiding from some core elements of myself and my personality. Nowadays my practice changes, no two days are the same.
How Yoga Made Me Weird
Ok – I know the weirdness had to be in me in the first place – but from where I am now I look back on my yoga immersion and – well!
So I was learning about energy, chakras, nadi’s, granthis, bandhas, oneness, the flow of the universe, karma, reincarnation, vast and infinite lifeforce. Gradually my focus shifted from the physical body to the power of the mind, and to energy.
I had a great capacity for wanting to do things the right way, the way the book said it must be done. I devoured teachings and books that gave me a structure and method for shifting and harnessing energy. I become involved in some rather forceful practices and had many mystical experiences. I yearned for enlightenment.
I used to host workshops for a Tantra Mantra teacher. He insisted on being accommodated in my flat. I had travelled to India on spiritual pilgrimage to the ashram of Sri Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai with this teacher. When I signed up for the India trip I had no idea that it was a spiritual pilgrimage to this specific ashram and even less idea of who Sri Ramana Maharshi was. I had signed up for a month in India on the basis of a five day mantra workshop that had turned my insides to jelly – which I though must be a good thing and something I should pursue. I did not pursue the nude swimming and sauna sessions.
A few months before the trip I had a dream, one of many that have stayed with me. I had been visiting Glastonbury town for a few years by this time, exploring more ideas of spirituality, meditating a lot on the Tor and inwardly tutting at anyone drinking cans of lager up there (yes, I was an enormous spiritual snob). In this dream I walked into a shop in Glastonbury. The shop was painted in a dark, burgundy colour. It had a wooden floor, a counter to the left as you walked in, and on every wall, every shelf, in every basket, there were posters, mugs and keyrings of an old man with white hair. I remember waking up and thinking ‘what a strange dream’.
Then in December 2004 I flew to Chennai with 16 other spiritual pilgrims. As we were spiritual pilgrims we had to wear white clothes. As soon as we arrived we all started changing into our spiritual outfits (you might have an idea by now that I absolutely loved this at the time) and everyone (but me) was putting on neck chains. And on the neck chain? Why, it was the old man with the white hair who had been in my Glastonbury dream. I know!! I asked about the picture and was informed that this man was the whole point of our journey. I don’t know how I had missed this key point, but I had.
During one of our evening satsangs with the Tantra Mantra teacher, he told us that many of his students had commented on how his face changed into that of Sri Ramana Maharshi during powerful mantra sessions. As much as I wanted to believe everything that came out of the mouth of this teacher, I was developing my own discerning attitude and I think my inner, unspoken thought at that time was ‘yeah, right’.
So back to the St Annes workshop. We had chanted for 2 days, everything was finished, tidied up and cleared away and I was preparing an evening meal in the gloaming whilst my teacher sat at the table, with just a dim light for illumination. I served the meal and as we ate I looked up to see the face of Sri Ramana Maharshi looking back at me.
“Your face is doing that changing thing”, I eloquently commented.
“What does it mean?”.
He told me that the veil was lifting, that I had the chanting ability but still much to learn.
He departed the next morning and I rearranged my practice room with a picture of Sri Ramana Maharshi in pride of place. That picture has watched over me all these years. It has seen me laughing and crying and everything imbetween. Those eyes have followed me, encouraging me through many practices and once, even winked.
My parents visited my flat a few years ago and Mum asked me
“Why have you got pictures of this old man around the flat, but none of us?”
Good question Mum. What was really going on at that time for me? I had turned away from family and friends in pursuit of a more spiritual life, in the hope that this would fill the emptiness inside - the ache that we all are very adept at hiding, and also that I would come to believe myself to be a worthwhile and good person leading a meaningful life.
Last night I put pictures of my family back up in my living room - underneath the giant hand embroidered Ganesh and next to Buddha. I now know that there is room for both, people and God, in all forms, at all times. Deep sigh of relief. Thank goodness.
Where I Am Now
At times in my practice I have felt stuck. Pain has remained. Old habits have crept back in. I continue to seek, to read, to try out new practices which in turn give me a different perspective, new insights, eureka moments, epiphanies!
I am kinder to myself and in turn can offer more kindness to others. I can find love in each person I meet, in the clouds and the sunshine, on the beach, watching a film.
I can experience freedom from shame, guilt and criticism in my practice. I adore my body and the things it can do – what a miracle we are.
I have no desire to be bendy or to impress anyone with anything ever. But if people like what I do, then that’s wonderful, magical, absolutely terrific.
I am deeply grateful for my family, the people who remain in my life, and that I now have work that involves exploring the weird and wonderful, unseen and unknown, unquantifiable, unexplainable - with people who have the same curiosity and passion. This is a journey we all take together, and become more whole in the sharing of our stories and experiences.
I recently read that, in writing a story, the difference between tragedy and comedy is a happy ending. Have I got my happy ending? I don’t feel I’m entirely there yet, but then I have spent decades looking at what needed fixing rather than enjoying what I had.
Fortunately I am wise to these games now. I know happiness is a mere thought away. And as I get older in life, in yoga, I am just grateful for each morning that my eyes open to the world and I have another day to share with people who are often as puzzled as me, who can laugh a little at life, and appreciate a sunset and nice slice of cake.