Why do I do yoga? Well, honestly, for so many reasons.
I'm going to give you a glimpse into my journey.
I have always been "high strung". Some of my earliest memories are of the adults around me telling me to "calm down". I vividly remember having panic attacks in first grade. I had always assumed that what I felt was normal, mainly because I never talked to anyone about how I felt.
Fast forward 25 years. I moved to the Midwest when I was 31. I met my now husband.
I was having panic attacks multiple times a day. No matter how much I worked out, which used to be my anxiety relief, I was getting them. Just thinking about going into work would make be start to hyperventilate.
After a while of watching this, my husband gently explained to me that this was not a normal way to live. I struggled to believe that what he said was true, I mean I was 31 years old and no one had ever told me that it wasn't normal to live life in a pressure cooker. Research and talking to A LOT of different people convinced me that he was right, I clearly had anxiety issues.
I finally broke down and went to the doctor who confirmed that yes, I do in fact have general anxiety disorder and panic attack disorder. She suggested that I should embrace the pharmaceutical solution, something I just wasn't on board with.
Being stubbornly independent, I started researching how to deal with this, in my eyes, flaw. Time and time again the professionals mentioned yoga.
Much like a large portion of Americans, I had been raised with this inaccurate view of yoga as some weird lazy hippy dippy "crap". I was taught that it was just lying on a mat sleeping, or not physically doing anything. So...to say I was skeptical is an understatement. However, living with panic attacks and a constant fear that the world was going to come to a fiery end wasn't a good option.
I have crippling social anxiety, coupled with a fear of failure, and a need to be perfect, so in studio sessions were a hard pass from me. Luckily, I live in the age of technology. A quick Youtube search revealed that I could try this new thing out in my own home. And I did. At first it didn't do jack for me. I know now that I wasn't letting it work. Being unwilling to give up on things, I found another youtube channel and stuck with it. This one worked. The teacher reminded the students to listen to their bodies, reminded us to let go. She was informative and helpful, even though in reality she was just a video. After a few weeks of regularly doing these classes, I noticed that my panic attacks were pretty much gone. Huge win for me.
Yoga was helping me so much that I decided I needed to get my 200 hour yoga teacher training certification.
Now, several years later, I have made a lot of life changes. I have learned a lot about myself, and I realize that my yoga mindset will help me through.
If any of this resonated with you, feel free to reach out. If all you read was a bunch of hogwash, that's ok too. Go with peace and find a way to make the world a better place.
Kris
